News:

Printed Amstrad Addict magazine announced, check it out here!

Main Menu
L

"Modern" way of creating physical 3" disks?

Started by LambdaMikel, 16:54, 07 September 18

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

LambdaMikel

I last did that ~ 2001 when I still had a 5.25" floppy in my PC and a Vortex for the CPC. From there I could copy it to 3".

Now, I no longer have all that crap  ;D  What's a good way of creating a good old physical 3" disk from a DSK image these days?

I also recall I had a solution which would use some kind of parallel port cable to transmit stuff from the PC and it would get written to disk on the CPC. I lost that capability too.

I do not want to try to connect a 3" drive to my Laptop. And I no longer have a PC box (only a laptop).

Open to any suggestions!  :)

VincentGR

I have some very old pc here and there with internal 3.5 drive.
I write the image on a disk and to my 3.5 on my cpc which is mounted as B.
Discology makes the rest.

LambdaMikel

Great idea, right... I once had a 3.5" floppy for the CPC (I think I even assembled it myself, but I no longer have it and I forgot how to do that - but I can probably resurrect that knowledge)


I still have a USB 3.5" floppy drive for my Laptop, I think that might work. How do you write the DSK file from the PC to the 3.5" PC floppy? What program is doing that?


VincentGR

USB drives will not work, well maybe for a very few images.
You just need an old pc with XP/7 and the utility CPCDiskXP.
Also you must run first an included driver just once as far as I remember.
The utility formats, writes, takes backups and you can extract or include files in a new image.

LambdaMikel

Quote from: VincentGR on 17:46, 07 September 18
USB drives will not work, well maybe for a very few images.
You just need an old pc with XP/7 and the utility CPCDiskXP.
Also you must run first an included driver just once as far as I remember.
The utility formats, writes, takes backups and you can extract or include files in a new image.


Ah right, CPCDiskXP... I have used it in the past!
Hmm, old PC box... not sure I want to go there anymore.
You are right the most USB floppies are not working.
I remember vaguely that I have one that works, but
I might be wrong.


I will try and post whether I got it running.


LambdaMikel

... just bought the 3.5" cable and floppy kit from @ikonsgr on Ebay.

mr_lou

I used a few command-line tools on Linux, but it was also a long time ago now.After HxC came along it's all SD card now.

LambdaMikel

Yeah, I have a Gotek, HxC, DDI-3, M4, ... and some other stuff like this as well, but I'd like to use my supply of 3" disks as well. Otherwise, why am I spending all the time every couple of years replacing drive belts??  :laugh:


I am old school. Sometimes I like my EPROM board and 3" drive best.




LambdaMikel

Tried my USB PC 3.5" floppy, and no, it does not work with CPCDiskXP, since the fdinstall.exe doesn't like my USB drive.
Now I stumbled over this one here:

https://www.kryoflux.com/?page=kf_features

Anybody has that? That looks like a valid option for Laptop owners.


robcfg

KF and SCP do work well.


I use a KF with a FDI-1 drive for imaging disks and in theory you can write them back.

LambdaMikel

That means you hooked up the FD-1 directly to the KF and access it via USB from the Laptop / PC?
Would be super curious to learn if you can just write back a DSK file and if that'll really work on the CPC in its 3" drive.

robcfg

Yes, that's what I mean.


I haven't tried writing a disk, but it should be possible.


You will not be able to use a dsk file directly, but you can convert it to the raw KF format using the excellent HxC software.

LambdaMikel

Would you mind really trying it? The device is kind of pricey... since I will be mainly using it only to write 3" disks, it would be great to know for sure it works.

robcfg

Right now, I can't, as I just moved to Stockholm a couple of months ago and I have all my stuff in a storage place.

gotcha

If you have a 6128, I think that the main way for creating 3" disks is the following:

       
  • You get a dsk image from the web or you create your own on the PC (with tools like CPCDiskXP)
  • you get a Gotek drive with it's cable for CPC
  • Then, you use a disk copy software (like Discology) on the 6128 to copy from the gotek (drive B) to the 3" disk (drive A).
Regarding the Kryoflux, I think it's mainly useful to create disk images from the physical disks, not to create new physical disks. Regarding creating new 3" physical disks, I think the Kryoflux is only useful if you want to recreate an original disk with its original protections. For this, you'll need

       
  • a 3" disk without any bad sector (use MarkError to check the disk)
  • a Kryoflux
  • a FD1/DDI1 that you connect to the kryoflux (as I remember, 5v must be removed somewhere on the FD1)
From this, you can in theory copy a raw image from the PC to the 3" disk.

LambdaMikel

I'll try that. Since my main computer is a 464, I'll have to find a dual floppy setup where one floppy is DDI3, the other one a FD1 or similar. I believe the DDI3 has a port for a second floppy (never used it, but it looks like one). I also have an HXC floppy emulator, for that one for sure i know it can work as second drive in combination with a real FD1 3" drive.

gotcha

Quote from: LambdaMikel on 20:08, 01 October 18
I'll try that. Since my main computer is a 464

As soon as you want to do some work with floppy disks, I think the 6128 is really a nice to have, since it's very easy to get a two-floppy configuration or 1 floppy and a Gotek.

And if you enjoy tapes, you can still plug a tape player into the 6128 !

LambdaMikel

Well, it's not that I don't have one - I have one, but it's usually stored in a box in the garage. Being a 464 user for ~ 33 years,  I just don't like the keyboard of the 6128. It is not very ergonomic at all with all the clustered keys with no pressure point.

gotcha

I never used a 464 so I can't really compare. But it's true that when we are used to a particular keyboard, it's not easy to appreciate others.
Personally, as 6128 user, I like its keyboard  ;D

GUNHED

Copy the DSK to HFE, then from HxC floppy emulator to physical 3".
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

LambdaMikel

Has anybody ever used the extra floppy port connector of the DDI3?  Does it work with FD1?

LambdaMikel

Found a solution, using FD-1 as secondary and HxC as primary drive. With DDI-1 controller.

GUNHED

http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

Lone

Hello,


If you need to convert any dsk file back with a Kryoflux (or a SCP), you can try and use "SugarConvDsk".
It's main goal is to convert any format to almost any other format (Kryoflux RAW is not writable at the moment).


So you can take a dsk from the internet, then convert it to IPF (then write back to a disk with your Kryoflux), or SCP (and do the same with your SCP).


It's working even with protected software (even with weak sectors), the only one that's not always workings are protections that needs specific data accross the index.


Last version is build 124, here : https://github.com/Tom1975/SugarConvDsk/releases/tag/SugarConvDsk-v124


Also, a Linux version is available, but was not really fully tested.






Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod