Date   : Sun, 02 Nov 2003 20:09:13 +0100
From   : Robert Schmidt <rschm@...>
Subject: Re: writing images to a drive-success!!!-How to do it.

Hi all,

Vincent Joguin, a friend of mine, is the developer of Disk2FDI 
(http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi/).  It has been brought up in this 
list before, and I believe ElectrEm has some support for the FDI format.

The FDI format strives towards capturing full details of what's stored 
on a floppy.  I.e. it will almost certainly capture any physical copy 
protection mechanism and other surface faults, making it possible for 
emulators to work with *more than* bit-perfect copies.

The DOS-only utility Disk2FDI (obviously) creates FDI image files from a 
physical floppy.  What's novel is that it promises to read many "exotic" 
formats thought impossible to read with modern PC hardware (e.g. Amiga 
and sigle density disks), through a trick of having the FDC (the 
hardware) switch rapidly between 2 drives.  If copy protection is not an 
issue, regular sector dump images can also be made.

If anybody tries the latest version of Disk2FDI on BBC floppies, I would 
really appreciate to know about the results, or you're of course welcome 
to communicate directly with Vincent.


Cheers,
Robert


Mike Tomlinson wrote:

>In article <003901c3a13a$002b03e0$1902a8c0@...>, Darren T. Brown
><darren@...> writes
>
>  
>
>>System specs:
>>Elite K7S5A, Athlon2100+, 512mb 2700DDR Ram
>>Windows 98se
>>Motherboard, nothing special, just a cheapy:
>>Super I/O:  ITE IT8705F
>>    
>>
>
>Thanks very much.  This is useful info.  I have the same board and a
>spare 1.2Mb drive so will be giving this a go one rainy day.  Sorry if
>my last post seemed a bit bad-tempered; I've been struggling with this
>on and off for several years and have 5 boxes of 5.25" disks, 100 per
>box, cluttering up the desk less than 6 inches from my right hand which
>I am keen to image and get rid of before they deteriorate.  Including
>the ones in the loft, I have about 1000 5.25" floppies full of BBC
>software.
>
>It's also interesting that you're able to read/write disks on a 1.2Mb
>drive; all my attempts to do this (on various PCs, 486 upwards) have had
>mixed results.  Basically, once FDC returns an error, that's it:  no
>further operations are possible and the floppy controller seems to enter
>a state of limbo from which it is necessary to reset (power off and on)
>to recover.
>
>I've had the best results by connecting a BBC 40/80t drive direct to the
>PC.
>
>The K7S5A I have now runs Linux, so I will be looking into creating a
>floppy device in /dev which will allow me to write a BBC disk from the
>command line using dd.  I'd be interested to hear from anyone else
>doing, or who has done, the same thing.
>
>cheers,
>Mike
>
>
>
>  
>