Clone CF Card to IMG for PicoMEM \ VOGONS

Clone CF Card to IMG for PicoMEM

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First post, by uniQ

Posted on 2025-08-05, 19:41

uniQ Offline

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Joined: 2022-07-04, 12:16

Hi,

I recently bought a PicoMEM card for my old Commodore PC10-III family computer for future upgrades and overall convenience.
Currently, I'm using a painstakingly transferred DR DOS 5.0 installation from my old MFM hard drive, running via a CF card using an XT-IDE adapter.
I'd now like to transfer this installation to the new PicoMEM card.

My question is:
What's the best way to go about this? I've already tried creating a suitably sized IMG file via PicoMEM and injecting the CF card's data into it,
but the system no longer boots from the IMG that way.

My Retro Systems

Reply 1 of 5, by Jo22

Posted on 2025-08-05, 20:05

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Hi, maybe Win32 Disk Imager can help? 🙂
On Linux, there's GNOME Disk Utility, it can restore/save drive content from/to images, too.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 2 of 5, by Yoghoo

Posted on 2025-08-05, 21:09

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Did you make a disk image so that the boot record is also transferred? Just copying data does not work.

If the data is readable on drive C: when booting from a DR-DOS 5.0 boot floppy then you can do "SYS C:". Then booting should work again.

Reply 3 of 5, by Jo22

Posted on 2025-08-06, 03:38

Jo22 Offline

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That's a good idea. Because XT-IDE and PicoMEM may use different LBA translation. I didn't think of this before.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 4 of 5, by uniQ

Posted on 2025-08-06, 12:55

uniQ Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 56
Joined: 2022-07-04, 12:16

I tried several cloning and HDD imaging tools but the PC10-III just won't boot.

I ended up taking the longer route via PCem, connected the PicoMEM IMG, reinstalled DR DOS 5.0 and copied my data using WinImage.
Now it runs on the Commodore as well. 😀

My Retro Systems

Reply 5 of 5, by vetz

Posted on 2025-08-06, 12:58

vetz Offline

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I use Disk Editor from the Norton Utilities package:

Object -> Drive -> Physical disks -> Hard Disk 1 (your MFM harddrive)
Object -> Physical sector -> Cylinder: 0, Side: 0, Sector: 1, Number of sectors: maximum
(cursor at the beginning) Edit -> Mark
Press "End" to select the entire disk area
Tools -> Write to -> to a File... (make sure you can write to a second harddrive, zipdrive or network location)

.img file can then be opened up in utilities like WinImage or used on PicoMem

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