Floppy disks not working after backup with PC

Resident (34)

31-08-2009, 19:09

Guys,

I would like to get your advise on the following matter since it has been keeping me occupied for 2 full days and nights now

I am reviving my old MSX-2 with an external floppy drive, and notice some floppy's are not working anymore (probably age).
Since I want to save the disks that still do work I want to make backup copies.

I have done extensive searching in the forum, but it seems that everybody is easily able to backup their disks.

I have tried numerous ways, among the following:
1. use DCOPY to create BACKUP.DSK then restore it on a genuine 2DD floppy (formatted on MSX)
Result is that the floppy can be read partly. it started MSXDOS, but when performing <DIR> command approx 20 files were shown after which I got a i/o error.
2. Same as at (1), but now using a PC-formatted genuine 2DD floppy
3. Same as at (1), but now on another PC

Is there something i'm doing wrong?
It might have something to do that my pc FDD's are "normal" 1.44M 2HD drives?

I really would like to save the remaining disks, but it seems that my PC's are screwing up my 2DD floppies...

PS: I'm even working on a parallel interface program now to send data to the MSX from a normal PC..... (am i re-inventing the weel???)

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Par Sonic_aka_T

Enlighted (4130)

31-08-2009, 23:13

Reading 20 files and then crapping out kind of sounds like an MSX disk drive issue, when the 2nd head is bust. Are you sure the MSX drive is in working order? Have you tried copying a 2DD disk which is working to another disk and testing it?

Having issues with DD disk on your PC is fairly common indeed. Especially Windows XP and later seem to dislike DD floppy disks.

To send data between your PC and your MSX you may want to look at NoWind, which is a USB interface which hooks up to your MSX. I think it kind of turns your PC into a 'storage device' for your MSX. You could also have a look at the Sunrise CF interface or Erikie's SD interface, which are both good ways to transfer data from your PC to your MSX. This option doesn't solve your 'disk saving' issue though.

Par losje

Resident (34)

01-09-2009, 13:09

Sonic_aka_T, Thanks a lot for your response, it's good to know I'm not on my own

Taking your worry into consideration, I unmounted my FDD and cleaned it. That seemed to be no luxury, dustclouds everywhere ;-)
Anyway, while cleaning I thought of your comment, and came to the conclusion it should not be the MSX drive alone, because the original disks can be read without any problem. Since the copied disk should be exactly the same, it should work just the same, right?
The specific disk we are talking about is a turbo pascal disk, with no copy protections...
I'm now using the MSX to copy the disk, and will let you know the results...

Par Repair-Bas

Paragon (1163)

01-09-2009, 13:19

I think the drive is broken

what type of drive you have

Par losje

Resident (34)

01-09-2009, 13:27

Copying the disk with the MSX works!
*pfhew* This means at least that the drive in the MSX is working correctly. I copied 720kb of data and can read all.

Now I do have some disks that are damaged, and the MSX is of course a very slow and intensive way of copying the disks.

Anyone has some ideas on the copying disks with PC issue from the original post?
Short summary:
* When I copy a disk in my MSX it works
* When I use a PC & DCOPY it does read a number of files, but gives an io error after a number of files.

Anyone?

Par Jipe

Paragon (1586)

01-09-2009, 15:07

try diskmanager but test your PC drive before and clean inside

http://www.lexlechz.at/en/software.html

Par gargamel

Expert (101)

01-09-2009, 23:13

There could be a number of reasons of incompatibility between the floppy drives, for example head alignment.

However if you have the possibility to use MS-DOS, I recommend ImageDisk which gives you more detailed information and it also analysis the disk format. It only copies disk images.
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/

Par losje

Resident (34)

01-09-2009, 23:50

**SOLVED**

Guys, thank you all for your positive responses,

I have very good news, I've managed to get my old games to .DSK and back using DiskManager (Jipe advised this).
Maybe it is a good idea to sumamrise the stack of problems that was keeping me busy, as a possible help for others reading this topic:
-> I used bad floppies, the format gave no problems, but after a couple of attemts they failed anyway
-> The drive itself was VERY dusty, so clean your drive (Sonic_aka_T thanks for the tip)
-> The backup tool for windows changed to Disk Manager
-> Format the disk on MSXDOS, then use DiskManager without formatting in the PC
-> Note that you do NOT have to use a DD drive in the PC, I'm currently using a 2HD drive
-> Copy protections may be present on games (aleste2)

@ gargamel: I will certainly try this tool! Thanks for the tip!

Par losje

Resident (34)

02-09-2009, 09:54

@Gargamel, can you please also include the default IMD command to read an MSX floppy to image, and to write one back to FDD?

This might save me a lot of time..

Par gargamel

Expert (101)

02-09-2009, 14:38

Use the ImageDisk menu to read or analyze the 3.5” floppy disk and start with:
(drive A)

IMD /A

(drive A, force single sided for read and analysis)

IMD /A S=1

To convert from an ImageDisk file to a sector data only image use:

IMDU myfile.IMD newfile.DSK /B

And for an data disk image to the IMD format use:
(360KB single sided)

BIN2IMD myfile.DSK newfile.IMD DM=5 N=80 SS=512 SM=1-9 /1

(720KB double sided)

BIN2IMD myfile.DSK newfile.IMD DM=5 N=80 SS=512 SM=1-9 /2

It's possible to specify special format for different tracks with an option file.

Par losje

Resident (34)

10-09-2009, 19:43

For the PC2MSX tools I was talking about, please read: