VOGONS


First post, by vorvek

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I'm using floppy disk drives in all my retro computers. I thought I wouldn't, but a lot of times I need to copy some small file, like a save game, a patch, a driver and whatnot, and I find using a floppy is quick enough, as a few of the machines have no USB ports, and some have them in the back, where I can't really reach easily, or simply have an OS where it's a pain in the ass to install USB drivers.

In any case, I've been searching for a good tool to manage floppies. While dropping some files in Windows explorer is fine for simple file copies, I've found myself needing to copy full images to floppies, and the results have been pretty bad overall. In my modern computer I'm using an HP USB floppy drive from the early 2000s, and most tools complain that the disk is open even if nothing else seems to be open.

The only software I got to somewhat work sometimes is Win32DiskImager, but it's hit and miss. Sometimes it will work after formatting the disk, sometimes it will complain about some sectors, with the same image file and the same disk.

I know I'm not asking stricly for retro software, but... what software do you use to handle your floppy drives in modern OSs?

Reply 1 of 5, by maxtherabbit

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For modern Windows go with Rawwrite-win http://www.chrysocome.net/rawwrite

For DOS, IMD is the gold standard. http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm

Reply 3 of 5, by Caluser2000

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I use rawwrite quite often.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 4 of 5, by Jo22

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On a modern PC, I'm using WinImage 8.x (previously 6.x) occasionally. On Windows, of course.
Mac and Linux still lack a user friendly counterpart (except for special solutions such as FC5025 or KyroFlux).

On a 286+ vintage PC, I'm using WinImage 3.x on Windows 3.1 running Standard Mode.
On a PC/XT compatible PC (808x) and plain DOS, I use Disc Copy Fast (DCF). In the past, I used to use QCopy 4.x here.

"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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