VOGONS


First post, by keropi

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Hiya!

I am in the process of creating backups of my original game floppies.
720kb, 1.44MB and 1.2MB floppies give me no problem whatsoever with HD-COPY that I use (it makes standar .img files and is really useful) , but 360kb 5.25" ones are tricky...! They produce all kinds of errors from "floppy controller timeouts" to "disk not ready" in HD-copy but eventually you get an .img created... (vgacopy just fails) but I don't really trust it being good...

What is strange is that the disks themselves are fine! DOS reads them fine, you can copy the files just fine and all seem OK. I currently use PKZIP to create a .zip with the disk's contents and volume label , it works but I would like a real .img 🙄

I am using a pentium1 that runs DOS only and a 1.2MB 5.25" drive btw...

So, are there any recommendations? Any other program I should try?
Thanks for any info! 😊

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Reply 1 of 20, by SKARDAVNELNATE

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I've been using Floppy Image but it seems to expect 1.44 mb disks. For other types I use Virtual Floppy Drive by creating a blank image with the desired size and copy the contents of the disk into that.

Reply 3 of 20, by keropi

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Further testing indicates that 720kb disks give problems too... it seems that 360/720kb disks give problems when accessed from programs other than DOS...
teledisk seems to work OK but it needs checking, maybe the onbard FDC is acting up or is just picky on how it is accessed or something...

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Reply 4 of 20, by leileilol

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I use "Resqflpy", which isn't the best option anyway but it's worked fine for 5.25"'s for me so far. The annoying thing about it is that you'll have to rename the rescued image file later, as it doesn't allow input of the destination filename

A shame a lot of good floppy imaging tools only support microfloppies

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Reply 5 of 20, by keropi

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thanks for the suggestions, Resqflpy , teledisk and firm seem to read OK 720kb disks... will check them by writing the images back on floppies and do a CRC cross-check on the files...
I wonder what makes vgacopy and hd-copy to crap out on low density disks though...

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Reply 6 of 20, by WolverineDK

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Keropi: if you are in need of programs to de-protect some of your diskette based games. I can give out a link to two packages , that I have uploaded. But I prefer to give out that link in a PM.

Reply 8 of 20, by Malik

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Try Dunfield Development Services' Imagedisk?

(File Attached Below)

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    imd113.zip
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5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 9 of 20, by keropi

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@WolverineDK :
nope, the games definitely don't have any copy protection on them, I know for sure that Zeliard (360kb) and Terminator (720kb) don't have onboard tricks...

@shspvr:
That is a windows program my friend, I cannot use it... my new i7 does not even have a floppy controller ...

@Malik:
I will try that thanks 😁

could it be that the onboard FDC just bugs out ? it is a pentium mmx mobo, maybe the 3.5"/5.25" combo makes it flacky? I will see if I can use an ISA FDC and disable the onboard one....

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 10 of 20, by keropi

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I was away and did not really try any of the newly suggested progs , but I did find some old ISA I/O controllers that can be jumpered down to only have the floppy controller enabled...
If I put one on my p200mmx pc and disable in BIOS the onboard FDC , would that work? Anyone tried something similar in the past?

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Reply 11 of 20, by elianda

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It should work. It is the usual way when putting a MFM Controller with FDD Controller into a Pentium based mainboard. Or SCSI controllers with FDD controller.

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Reply 12 of 20, by shspvr

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Yes that will work
Just be sure it an ISA 8/16-Bit Floppy Controller only with out on board IDE if that all possable on your end or if it has jumper disable the IDE Port part on the card if that all possable.
The Combo Floppy Drive may or may not work you have try it.

new i7 does not even have a floppy controller

That what a USB Floppy Drive is for but there is no 5.25 drive in USB Floppy.
If can copy everthing off of each floppy disk on to harddrive into it own folder and that game works just fine that way with out it ask for disk A:\ or B:\ and it not a bootable disk that needed then no point in doing a disk image just copy each disk in to it own folder then just zip them up problem solve.
There could a number of reason why your not able to image it
Bad Sectors on the Disk do a scan disk with out auto repair.
It possable that what you think is Zeliard 5.25(360kb) in fact Zeliard 5.25(720kb) QD disk I take it that it the Japan ver and mot west ver which come out on 3.5" (720kb) floppy disks
As for Terminator that hard say why it not work

Reply 13 of 20, by keropi

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I will try the I/O card now..
btw my copy of Zeliard is an English one and it had both 3.5" and 5.25" disks inside...

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Reply 15 of 20, by keropi

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SUCCESS!!!!
after trying 2 different I/O controllers that show the same problem as before (720/360kb discs not reading ok) I thought of using a slowdown utility to bring my pentium 200 mmx machine to 386 speed levels! It worked! Both I/O cards and the onboard FDC work fine with 720/360kb discs!
It seems that both HD-COPY and VGACOPY use some speed-sensitive routine for low density discs...
with 386-level speeds all works fine! 😁
thanks anyone for the help!!!

@shspvr:
nope my friend my Zeliard version comes with 3 x 360kb 5.25" discs and 2 x 720kb discs...
have a look on the discs and the hd-copy screen when it reads a 5.25" disc of the game:

w1sd8x.jpg

w829ag.jpg

no, the disks are 101% 5.25" 360kb ones.

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 16 of 20, by TheMAN

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I really think you should be using rawrite... it is THE defacto standard for floppy images everywhere and can be read by many programs
all of the other old DOS programs are proprietary and if the program is lost, you're screwed as they're all obsolete... the only reason to use them is if they have abilities to defeat certain copy protection stuff

Reply 17 of 20, by Tetrium

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I remember using rawrite and another util (?) to format 720kb disks as 360kb by only formatting one side. You could set yourself how you wanted to format them, the program was very flexible. You could specify your own number of tracks, sector sliding, etc etc. I could create very weird formats that way but it needed a TSR so it could actually read them. I also remember it regrettably didn't work with 2.88MB disks.

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Reply 18 of 20, by keropi

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HD-Copy lets you do all those weird formats and understands fine 2.88mb disks... the reason I am using it is because the .IMG files it creates can be used almost everywhere, even UltraISO on windows recognizes them fine.... so far I don't have a game that has on-disk protection with bad/weird sectors, so I don't see the point in letting go the convenience of a well-spread format...
having said that I will also look on rawrite too 😁

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Reply 19 of 20, by Tetrium

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keropi wrote:

HD-Copy lets you do all those weird formats and understands fine 2.88mb disks... the reason I am using it is because the .IMG files it creates can be used almost everywhere, even UltraISO on windows recognizes them fine.... so far I don't have a game that has on-disk protection with bad/weird sectors, so I don't see the point in letting go the convenience of a well-spread format...
having said that I will also look on rawrite too 😁

Cheers! I will look into HD-copy 😉

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
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