liverygone wrote on 2025-12-04, 22:54:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-04, 19:44:

Ohh, I see. But no, cleaning the drive wasn’t the issue. It was getting files off a damaged floppy disk. Sadly I wasn’t able to, but then I struggled on putting files back to it, which I managed to solve in the end. 🙂

is it damaged or is it corrupted?

A bit of both. I had to swap the cookie inside with that of a different one. But sadly the image of disk 1 I thought was correct, turns out isn't.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-04, 23:08:

liverygone wrote on 2025-12-04, 22:54:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-04, 19:44:

Ohh, I see. But no, cleaning the drive wasn’t the issue. It was getting files off a damaged floppy disk. Sadly I wasn’t able to, but then I struggled on putting files back to it, which I managed to solve in the end. 🙂

is it damaged or is it corrupted?

A bit of both. I had to swap the cookie inside with that of a different one. But sadly the image of disk 1 I thought was correct, turns out isn't.

at this point just have it read all data from it and dump the info

Okay, I managed to do an experiment. I kindly asked someone, who's selling a floppy disk copy on eBay of the 'same version', if they could send me an image of disk 1. I wasn't expecting to get a reply to be honest, but they did. 😁 Sadly, I had the same problem like with the other images I've tried online. It won't accept my disks after disk 1. I can only presume that each copy of the game has some unique code, serial, or copy protection that differentiates them. So I guess that's that. Short of buying them all again, which isn't cheap, I'll just keep the disks for preservation. At least they all work. Kind of.

I still have the original cookie. I'll have to try putting into a different floppy chasis and try again with rescuing the files, but I'm not hopeful. I'll just grab all disk images online and put them on the Gotek.

The guy offered to send me images of all 5 of his disks, which was super kind. So I'll most likely backup the contents of my disks and replace them with these. 😀

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-05, 22:07:

The guy offered to send me images of all 5 of his disks, which was super kind. So I'll most likely backup the contents of my disks and replace them with these. 😀

good luck!

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-29, 02:41:

HD = High Density - can store 1.44M (1.2M for 5.25") DD = Doubke Density - can store 720k (360k for 5.25") FDC = Floppy Disk Con […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-11-29, 01:33:

Um, what’s HD, DD, and FDC?

HD = High Density - can store 1.44M (1.2M for 5.25")
DD = Doubke Density - can store 720k (360k for 5.25")
FDC = Floppy Disk Controller - the PC hardware that talks to the floppy drives.

DD disks have only one hole in the edge at the back, usually it has a slide to allow it to be covered - This enables Write Protect

HD has an extra not-coverable hole on the other edge at the back (away from slot side) - this lets the drive/FDC know that it needs to use a different data rate and magnetic strength when talking to the disk - the media is also different - if you put DD media in and HD case (or vice versa) it won't work correctly (but might still appear to work in some cases)

Btw, the reason the lower is "Double"density - way back in the dark ages when floppies where first invented the data was stored a certain way which later became known as "Single" density (SD) - later on techniques were developed to store the data with less embedded clock bits which resulted in twice as many effective data bits in the same area - this was called "Double" density (DD) still later methods were developed to use higher data rates and differenr magnetic coericivity to store even more data bits "High" density (HD).

SD was never officially used on the PC ... (and many PC FDCs can't even do SD) - hence the lowest capacity disks commonly used on a PC are DD

I have some questions concerning ImageDisk’s formatting. I’m not particularly clued up on the technicalities of floppy disks, but it asks to specify the Interleave. The Sides I get. Double-step, Interleave, specifying the Sectors/Tracks, and Data Rate Type, I’m not sure about. I left them at defaults. But are there specific values I should setsfor a 3.5” 1.44 HD disks? Thanks.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-24, 16:03:

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-29, 02:41:

HD = High Density - can store 1.44M (1.2M for 5.25") DD = Doubke Density - can store 720k (360k for 5.25") FDC = Floppy Disk Con […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-11-29, 01:33:

Um, what’s HD, DD, and FDC?

HD = High Density - can store 1.44M (1.2M for 5.25")
DD = Doubke Density - can store 720k (360k for 5.25")
FDC = Floppy Disk Controller - the PC hardware that talks to the floppy drives.

DD disks have only one hole in the edge at the back, usually it has a slide to allow it to be covered - This enables Write Protect

HD has an extra not-coverable hole on the other edge at the back (away from slot side) - this lets the drive/FDC know that it needs to use a different data rate and magnetic strength when talking to the disk - the media is also different - if you put DD media in and HD case (or vice versa) it won't work correctly (but might still appear to work in some cases)

Btw, the reason the lower is "Double"density - way back in the dark ages when floppies where first invented the data was stored a certain way which later became known as "Single" density (SD) - later on techniques were developed to store the data with less embedded clock bits which resulted in twice as many effective data bits in the same area - this was called "Double" density (DD) still later methods were developed to use higher data rates and differenr magnetic coericivity to store even more data bits "High" density (HD).

SD was never officially used on the PC ... (and many PC FDCs can't even do SD) - hence the lowest capacity disks commonly used on a PC are DD

I have some questions concerning ImageDisk’s formatting. I’m not particularly clued up on the technicalities of floppy disks, but it asks to specify the Interleave. The Sides I get. Double-step, Interleave, specifying the Sectors/Tracks, and Data Rate Type, I’m not sure about. I left them at defaults. But are there specific values I should setsfor a 3.5” 1.44 HD disks? Thanks.

does it give a specific error?