Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

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thunderbird32
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Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by thunderbird32 »

Hello everyone,

I've recently purchased a piece of software for NeXTSTEP that was distributed on Extended Density (2.88MB) floppies. I was wondering what might be the best way to image these disks. I've got a Kryoflux, but I know they don't support ED disks, even if I did have a PC compatible 2.88MB drive. What I do have is an IBM RS/6000 with a 2.88MB drive. Should I just 'dd' the disks? Would that work?

Willing to entertain other ideas as well.

mrpijey
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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by mrpijey »

dd should work on those. Are those original, because I have not seen many titles that were distributed originally on ED floppies....
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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by thunderbird32 »

They appear to be, based on the photos I've seen. I'm still waiting on them to arrive, but I'll update you when they do. I bought the software from a very well known NeXSTEP reseller, and I hesitate to mention the software title or the seller name, in case he decides to get peeved that I'm going to upload these to the internet (thus decreasing their value in the market).

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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by mrpijey »

I understand and respect that you want to keep the seller anonymous, but keeping the software hidden away is just not very smart. We'll see how valuable his software is when the floppies become unreadable and the labels faded or destroyed... You should definately make a copy, scan the floppies and preserve it best way possible. I hope you'll release the software once it's been properly archived.
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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by thunderbird32 »

Oh, sorry! You misunderstand me! I was definitely planning to upload it. That's why I was asking for advice on how to image it. You're preaching to the choir on this one. :)

I just didn't want to say where I got it.

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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by mrpijey »

Ah, alright then :). Well, dd should be fine, you should start with that.
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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by thunderbird32 »

Okay, so this is kind of embarrassing, but I don't really ever use "dd". So I'm testing with a random 1.44MB disk just to get a feel for how this should work. Here is the command I'm using:

Code: Select all

dd bs=512 count=2880 if=/dev/fd0 of=/home/user/image.img
This results in an image that is slightly too large (1,447KB) and they don't open in WinImage (or in an emulator). Obviously I'm doing something wrong.

Could somebody please help out a noob? Do I need to specify block size/count at all? If so, what would they be for the ED disks?

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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by Battler »

For ED disks, block size (which I assume is bytes per sector) is 512, block count is 5760.

And check if the image has some sort of header.
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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by thunderbird32 »

Battler wrote:For ED disks, block size (which I assume is bytes per sector) is 512, block count is 5760.
The disk still comes out too big. I tried to image the 2.88MB disk and got an image file that was 2,891KB.
Battler wrote:And check if the image has some sort of header.
Sorry, I'm not sure how to do that?

Here's a link to the image, in case that helps.

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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by Battler »

Yes, the size is definitely off. A dd dump of a standard FAT floppy image would be nice as I could then look at something I know how it should look like and determine if dd adds any weird things.
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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by thunderbird32 »

Here is a link to examples.

test.img is from 'dd'
test2.img is an image generated from Kryoflux stream files.

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Re: Imaging 2.88MB ED Disks

Post by thunderbird32 »

Nevermind, pretty sure the issue is that I neglected to set FTP to "binary" transfer mode. I'm spoiled with modern FTP clients. AIX's FTP is pretty ancient and doesn't have any of the niceties of a more modern one. I'lll report back if that doesn't fix it.

EDIT: That was the problem. Welp, I'm an idiot! Thanks for your help everyone! Now I just have to find AppSoft WriteNow and AppSoft Draw.
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