Floppies Backup - Disk Images

[Cass]

I'm trying to create a backup of the floppies I currently have. But there are problems regarding strange/unusual formats, like the Tri-Formatted disk (Amiga/Atari/PC) found on several magazines, and others...

Till now, I've tried the transdisk with the parameters "-d multi-os 0" (for the unit 0, df0:), and the DIC (Disk Image Creator). Unfortunately, I couldn't recreate the original. (corrupt/wrong image files).

Any ideas on how should I create an identical image of the floppy (with the possibility to transfer back to a physical medium)?


I`ve used dms in the first place, but the r/w errors encountered, made me searching for an alternative solution.

[meega]

Will the Disk Masher (DMS) do it? I don't know offhand if it can mash a non-DOS disk.

[orange]

have a look at whdload page.
IIRC theres wwarp, mfmwarp, OWS..
some DMS versions supposedly can read IBM formatted floppies, including HD ones
 
but maybe you cannot recreate the copy like in protected games. (do you by any chance know if the originals were created with standard drive?)

[Cass]

do you by any chance know if the originals were created with standard drive?

No info on how this disks were produced... But it is a standard FAT format mixed with FFS tracks. Amiga needs the track 40 and the PC the 0. I don`t remeber where lies the fat/bootblock for atari, but it has same geometry with the PC format.

A more trivial format, is the A-Max disks, the ones produced by the mac emulator software.

[meega]

DMS lets you choose the range of tracks that you want to mash, you don't have to do the entire disk...

[Matt_H]

Try the dcp tool in this package. It's the closest the Amiga has to the Unix tool dd. A raw copy of blocks from trackdisk.device unit 0 might work.

[InTheSand]

Hi,

Also try rawread - according to the blurb, "In theory this program can create images from all MFM (2us bit rate) formatted floppies except floppies with bit cell timing tricks".

The resulting images can be used in UAE - but note that the docs state that images made using this tool can't be written back to real floppies on standard Amiga hardware.

Might be of use though - better to have some backup images than none at all!

 - Ali

[orange]

I remember one funny thing when trying to make images with mentioned programs; you could get two different output files even with same settings on a same floppy drive and diskette.

Guess you ought to use them on a high quality drive, it seems to me they can't use error correction because of lowlevel access.

[Cass]

@ InTheSand

This should do the work.

cyl 64 side 0: length 12495/5 2
 (raw)
cyl 64 side 1: length 12495/2 2
 (raw)
cyl 65 side 0: length 12495/6 (AmigaDOS)
cyl 65 side 1: length 12666/0 (AmigaDOS)

Here is an example of the output during the disk image creation. I've used the "rawread -r -f triformat" as command line parameters. The result is an adf file with 1740538 bytes length. When mounted with latest WinUAE version, the disk is recognised as a NonDos disk. Same result with diskimage.device v37.7 .
Is there a possibility to write back the .adf to a floppy? The standard utils won't do the work...

[Piru]

Is there a possibility to write back the .adf to a floppy

No

As pointed out by InTheSand already

note that the docs state that images made using this tool can't be written back to real floppies on standard Amiga hardware.

[Cass]

can't be written back to real floppies on standard Amiga hardware.

Is there a non-standard Amiga h/w that can recreate the originals (catweasel maybe)?

The proble was the .adf produced by this utility was unusable even under the emulation, so I doubt it would be of any further use.

IPF might be a better solution. How can I create an .IPF image?