PC to AMIGA (Diskette Questions)

[3246251196]

ok. thats excellent.

can i buy a BUNCH of DDs from your workplace man? (is it true that some Amigas CAN deal with HDs though - or is this merely FALSE?) thanks

324

[amigakit]

Yes we stock real DSDD floppy disks here:

10 Pack
25 Pack
50 Pack

You can fit a High Density floppy mechanism to your Amiga and read PC HD disks 1.44Mb and Amiga HD disk 1.76MB

[InTheSand]

3246251196 wrote:
is it true that some Amigas CAN deal with HDs though - or is this merely FALSE?

The Amiga 3000T and Amiga 4000 (both desktop and tower versions) had HD drives as standard.

There was also the XL Drive produced by Power Computing that was an external HD drive (but was slow and unreliable if my one is anything to go by!)

Finally, Zorro-based Amigas can make use of the Catweasel expansion card to use standard PC HD drives.

There's also a Catweasel PCI card for PCs that will allow them to read/write Amiga disks using a standard drive (see AmigaKit's post).

 - Ali

[3246251196]

wouldnt it be perfect if there was a PC program that: converted the ADF onto a disk AND formated (if needed - i.e. if HD) that disk FOR the amiga!

that would be very nice!

[amigakit]

Yes its the IMAGETOOL.EXE program that comes with the Catweasel MK4

[InTheSand]

Yep! If you're serious about PC to Amiga or Amiga to PC disk transfers, get a Catweasel from AmigaKit!

 - Ali

[3246251196]

looks as though i will try and SCRAPE together enough money for one of those!! lol. looks nOice

[3246251196]

ok - check this out:

"Using software that can read PC formatted disk

If you have KickROM version 2.0 (or higher) and the Workbench 2.0 (or higher) disks then this software is already on these disks. The first thing you should do is formatting a 3.5" double density disk on your PC. You can copy the files that you need to this disk (for example: TwinExpress). Start the Amiga with Workbench 2.0 (or higher) and put the disk in your Amiga diskdrive (DF0:). You can find the needed software in the "/storage/dosdrivers" directory. If you run the file "PC0" your Amiga will automatically detect that the disk in DF0: is an DOS-formatted disk and an extra icon will appear. For using DF1: run "PC1". You can click on it and as you see the file you put on them are now visible (if not so try the "Window" workbench menu and select Show -> All Files)."

i tried this. out of my collection of Amiga disks a grabbed a PRECISION MF2DD disk (with data on it). i put it in the PC and format (using "720Kb & 512bytes/sector") the disk. then, i JUST manage to squeeze a file on it (disk2 [its an ADF i am sure, it just didnt have the extension])

so - so far. a formated DD 720Kb disk with NOW data on it. then, i put this into the amiga - using the PC1 program - and it basically did nothing at all. in fact, the disk showed up as DF1:?

yet, in the quotations it said doing this should work?

[odin]

Hm it should work. But this is not your 3.x Workbench on 2.x Kickstart is it?

[3246251196]

yeah it is. is that the problem?

[odin]

Well, I'd think that there is a big chance it is.

[Thinkchip]

ADF files are always the same size: about 900,000 bytes or 880 kilobytes. There are several utilities for converting the ADF to a floppy. I use transadf, which is pretty old but workable. The trick is getting the file to fit on a 720-kb disk. You can usually compress the file with LHA or a zip utility down to a smaller size. Sometimes the file just won't get small enough. I used to use a null-modem cable a lot. Radio shack used to have null-modem adapters, which don't cost a lot. Most people wouldn't have the patience for it however. I would have the PC dial a number, it doesn't matter what, and the Amiga set to answer. The amiga would answer and they would be connected, just like that. You can use enormous transfer rates, like 190,000 bps (something like that).

[darksun9210]

Amigakit wrote:-

You can fit a High Density floppy mechanism to your Amiga and read PC HD disks 1.44Mb and Amiga HD disk 1.76MB

huh? how an you fit a PC HD floppy to an amiga and read/write HD disks? do you have an adapter? want one! :-D

[3246251196]

do you get transdisk/transad - whatever it is that puts ADF to AMIGA FORMATED disk from AmigaOS3.5 automatically?

[InTheSand]

Hi,

With your combination of HD-less Amiga with KS2.x and a single Workbench 3.1 boot disk, you will not be able to read PC disks.

The required CrossDOS files are present on the Extras and Storage disks and besides, they're unlikely to work 100% correctly on the KS2/WB3 combination even if you did have them!

There are other drivers available such as FAT95 (which is better than CrossDOS anyway) but you're still in a "chicken and egg" situation regarding getting it on to the Amiga in the first place...

 - Ali

[amyren]

Personally I used a program named AdfBlitzer to read and write .adf files on the Amiga.
Very easy to use GUI, one button for Read, one for Write and a third one for Quit.
I think you will find the program on Aminet.