Amiga.org
Operating System Specific Discussions => Amiga OS => Amiga OS -- Development => Topic started by: GreatLor on April 28, 2004, 04:18:36 PM
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Hey I am new in here and I have a question;
Is there any program for pc that reads AmigaDOS formatted disks ? I'm VERY desperate for a possible such proggy, I have an Amiga 500 at home (and I DONT have a PC at home, so messydos or crossdos is useless - unless someone can post them/it to me, PHYSICALLY that is) and want some of my old games/demos/proggs back, please please please tell me there is a possibility !
Thanx in advance ! :-)
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unfortunatley no, due to a bug or whatever in the firmware of pc floppy drive controllers you cant read amiga disks on a pee cee. You would need to buy extra hardware.One such solution i believe is the catweasel.
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uhhh, I suppose the only possibility then is to have messy-/cross-DOS then right ? jut wonder how on earth I can get one of them ! :-(
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http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/3-118.html (http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/3-118.html)
This is the easiest and far cheapest solution, if you really must read floppies:
Disk2FDI (http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi/trial.html)
@JJ
It's not a bug, but a feature. The PC floppy controller requires gaps after each sector on track, whereas amiga uses only one gap per track (all sectors are written in one go). PC controller is unable to read continuous track without the gaps.
Disk2FDI requires a 2nd fdd being connected for the reading to work.
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allright then not bug, just crap design
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Yes, piru I have read one of those sites you linked me, but the problem is that I dont have a PC at home, so if the PC absoulutely cannot read amiga-disks then all my hopes are to be relied on the CrossDOS or something, oh my Kickstart is 1.3, so I wonder if any CrossDOS version works with that ?
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@GreatLor
You have a problem then.
The only way to get this thing going is that someone sends you required tools on a amiga floppy.
AFAIK CrossDOS requires Kickstart 2.0+, but XFS (http://www.aminet.net/disk/misc/xfs.lha) should work with 1.x. Remember that you need someone to set up a bootable floppy with what you can read PC floppies and write ADF images back to amiga disks, and ship copy of floppy to you.
AFAIK that is the only way, if you don't have 2nd computer at home.
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The older versions of CrossDOS work with 1.x too.
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Maybe one of our local ppl could help you directly ? Which side of the planet are you on and what sort of beer do you have there ? :pint:
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Hi
@Piru
> AFAIK CrossDOS requires Kickstart 2.0+...
No, I own a CrossDos version (CrossDos+ Version 5.0) that do work with Kickstart 1.3, I have used it often with my A1000 back that days -- the Amiga drive was able to read several MSDOS-disks that were too bad for the PC to be read :-)
@GreatLor
Do you own a modem and terminal software for the Amiga ? Any modem will do it even an old 2400 baud modem. In that case you may be able to get the required files via the phone-line.
Noster
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The CrossDOS version which comes with WB 2.1 or better works on Kick 1.3 either. The only difficulty is that these floppies are formatted with FFS which cannot be read on Kick 1.3. So you first have to use a Kick 2.0 Amiga to read the disks and copy the required files to OFS floppies so Kick 1.3 can read them.
Bye,
Thomas
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Piru wrote:
Remember that you need someone to set up a bootable floppy with what you can read PC floppies and write ADF images back to amiga disks, and ship copy of floppy to you.
Uhh, I would appreciate further elaboration, I got a little confused, by "floppy" you mean "disk" right ?
Homer wrote:
Maybe one of our local ppl could help you directly ? Which side of the planet are you on and what sort of beer do you have there ? :pint:
I live in Gothenburg, Sweden !
Oh there all kinds of bear here, however I dont consume much due to terrible headicks :-)
Noster wrote:
@GreatLor
Do you own a modem and terminal software for the Amiga ? Any modem will do it even an old 2400 baud modem. In that case you may be able to get the required files via the phone-line.
Noster
Unfortunately not, yeah, I can imagine that this would be a nice option too !
Thomas wrote:
The CrossDOS version which comes with WB 2.1 or better works on Kick 1.3 either. The only difficulty is that these floppies are formatted with FFS which cannot be read on Kick 1.3. So you first have to use a Kick 2.0 Amiga to read the disks and copy the required files to OFS floppies so Kick 1.3 can read them.
Bye,
Thomas
:-?
:-D
Seriously, that was a little braintwisting, hehe !
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Uhh, I would appreciate further elaboration, I got a little confused, by "floppy" you mean "disk" right ?
The correct term for the medium is "floppy disk" and the term for the machine is "floppy disk drive". "Floppy" usually refers to the medium but sometimes also refers to the drive, you have to look at the context. "Disk" can also refer to a CD or a ZIP or JAZ medium. Again you have to see the context in order to decide if a *floppy* disk is meant.
Bye,
Thomas
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I want to let you know that I have a progg called "Dos2Dos" with which I formatted some disks in ms-dos format, I also have cross-dos, first time I tested it, it didnt seem to work properly, but now obviously it does, anyway I copies an amiga text-file to one of those disks, and now I'm sitting in front of a pc, and obviously it works, so now comes the question: when I copy lha files to the disks (I have the LHA decruncher) and then at home pack the files up, how do I then copy the content to a disk, not as a file but just copy the file as if it was a disk, cos as you know most amiga-games arent dos-readable, so can you help me ?
*Edit*
Oh and hey, is the "zip"-format the same format as "lha" ? I think I read somewhere that it was the same thing !
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You can still write a non-dos floppy, with one of the various command line utilities that are available on the net (Aminet's a good place to look). It doesn't matter that AmigaDOS doesn't the disk because the disk-writing utility does all the necessary work.
Edit: No, zip and lha are different formats. Although they do a similar job, you can't perform actions on zip files with lha or vice versa.
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Do you have any direct link to one of those utils, please ? I will go home 1 our after after I write this post, so I would hope to get some things working today.
*Edit*
How much bigger will lha files become after they are unpacked ?
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adf2disk: http://www.aminet.net/disk/misc/adf2disk11.lha (readme (http://www.aminet.net/disk/misc/adf2disk11.readme))
The contents of lha files will unpack to anything from 100% to (I guess) 250% of the size of the lha archive. The efficiency of the compression depends entirely on the type of data you're using. (Data that's already heavily compressed, for instance, won't compress much at all.)
If I recall correctly (forgive me if I'm wrong, this is all from memory) if you type at the command line:
lha v (name of your archive)
You will be given information on the contents of the archive, the compression ratio of each file and their uncompressed size.
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Thank you so much that_punk_guy, sorry for replying so late, but I've been sick, thanx again !
Another question, I formatted some HD files with Dos2Dos (with the same Dos2Dos I also formatted 2 DD disks which worked fine), but when I try to access their contents the dos (dos-prompt) gives error messages, the DD disks work fine though, even when I try to format them with a pc with the command "format a: /f:720" it gives error messages, I REALY NEED to get the pc accepting 720k-formatted HD-disks, is there any program out there to that for me ?
Thanx in advance !
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I REALY NEED to get the pc accepting 720k-formatted HD-disks
Cover the 2nd hole in the HD-disk (not the one that has the tab you can move!), tape will do.
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Hi
> I REALY NEED to get the pc accepting 720k-formatted HD-disks
No way by software!
But it is very easy, have a look at a DD and a HD disk. You will see that the HD-disk has an additional hole at the opposite side than the read-write hole. Just use a small sticker and put it over the hole and the PC will think it is a DD disk.
Noster
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That easy huh ? wow, thanx guys, I appreciate it, hey the pc I'm sitting in front of at the moment, does not accept my dd-disks saying the the filesystem is fo the type RAW and that the new filesystem is of the type FAT, is this "system" hardware or software, if its not hardware, then why does the ms-dos refuse to format ?
*EDIT*
DAMN this, the damn MS-DOS either says that "the disk is unusable, either the thing is defect or the track 0 is damaged" or it starts "formatting" but it would take 20 minutes or so to format, I formatted these at home with Dos2Dos and most of them (except a few) didnt have any defections, dammit the luck has totally turned its back against me, it seem I have supernatural forces against me, I keep telling myself "It seem I will NEVER get what I want" ... :-(
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Hi
> MS-DOS either says that "the disk is unusable, either the thing is defect or the track 0 is damaged"
I have bad experiences in formating HD disks as DD disks, the density of the read/write head seems to have problems with this, therefore it doesn't work with all HD disks (as one might expect if formating in a lower density). In fact I have major problems in formating any floppy-disk on any PC. I think the disks that are sold now are already very old, because noone uses them any more...
> or it starts "formatting" but it would take 20 minutes or so to format
The damn MS-D**F tries to save the contents of any disk that is formated to allow the "unformating" of a disk (see the dos command "Unformat"). If the disk hasn't been formated or has been previously formated in a different format (as in this case) the stupid OS needs very long to detect that there is nothing it could save for unformating :-(
You should call the format command with the following arguments to suppress this behaviour:
Format A: /U
(the argument /F:720 should not be required if the HD-hole is covered by a sticker)
Noster
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Thank you for the explenation, also someone gave me a link to a certain adf2disk progg, so I downloaded it and wend home, and what happens when I type in the sole name ? .. well, the comment says that it's only for OS-2.0 or higher, I have 1.3 :-( , isnt there an END to my anti-luck ??? :pissed:
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GreatLor wrote:
Thank you for the explenation, also someone gave me a link to a certain adf2disk progg, so I downloaded it and wend home, and what happens when I type in the sole name ? .. well, the comment says that it's only for OS-2.0 or higher, I have 1.3 :-( , isnt there an END to my anti-luck ??? :pissed:
I have not read the thread, but have found some tools that you might be able to use:
try tracksaver (http://home.t-online.de/home/thomas-rapp/download.html)
devcopy (http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet/disk/misc/)
I don't know the requirement for them, but try to have a look at them
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THANK YOU, but how weird, look at the size-contrast between these proggs:
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet/disk/misc/Image2Disk.lha
and
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet/disk/misc/tequilla.lha
:-?
*EDIT*
Nevermind the first link, compare this one to the one above:
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet/disk/misc/Devcopy.lha
Tequilla: 190 K
Devcopy: 2 K
:-? :-o :-? :-o :-? :-o :-? :-o :-? :-o :-? :-o :-?
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Hi
There is not a so large size-contrast, if you have a deeper look on the files:
Tequilla contains some stuff for the wind**f PC. The part that is for the Amiga is only 11KB (decompressed), so fi this part is packed using lha there is only a remaining size of 5 KB :-)
It's the software for the damn PC that is so large.
Noster
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well I say kill the pc and put tyhe amiga back on the throne !!! :-D