original disks to DSK

[Franck76]

I tried to search for help about this in the forum, but i'm still stuck....

What I would like to do is turn my original CPC disks that still work (all copy-protected) into .dsk to save them. I know that most of the games are downloadable elswhere, but i'd like to keep my own versions, if possible. Some are compilations like "Les justiciers" or "space ace".

I plugged an HxC floppy emulator as B drive on my CPC, works fine.

First I tried on the CPC to copy the files from (real) disk A to (virtual HxC) disk B with discology 7.3, but discology does not bypass the protections and it works no better than copying the real disk to another real disk. (I see many people claiming that discology can bypass almost all protections, so maybe i'm doing something wrong?)

I found some info there [SOLVED] Copying physical floppy to HxC floppy and DSK/HFE format though some things were not detailed, so after reading here is what I did :

On my CPC, I tried to use xexor "copy" to copy the disk to HxC, but that fails, using data or system "blank" images.

On my CPC, I used xexor "archive" command, which (if I understood well) creates a compressed image (on HxC) of the original disk. I typed ARCHIVE "file.arc" 0-41 (i'm not sure about this number of sectors...).

With one of my disks, it looks like it worked : I got my .arc file on an hfe on HxC.

I transfered it from HxC to a .dsk on my PC that I can load with winape.

On my PC with winape, I use xexor "extract" command to restore the .arc file to a disk image... But this is where it fails : it gets stuck on track 1 (I waited for several minutes). I am not sure about the syntax as I could not find any info on the extract command; I just used EXTRACT "file.arc". I am not sure about the images I should load as blank disks, I tried the ones from the topic above, the ones from winape, both data and system, but the result is exactly the same.

With another original disk, I did not get my .arc file but instead a .$$$ file, which I interpret as an attempt by xexor to write a file too large for the disk.

There must be loads of things I'm doing wrong, as I can just pick partial infos here and there... 

Anyone can help?

[Joseman]

Hi

Discology can't bypass almost any protection, only some weak protections like cpm disks without CATalog or something like this. Some protections rely on hardware limitations on the controller or bugs that make the cpc to have different behaviours  on read or write time. it is IMPOSSIBLE to copy this games on the CPC side.

The best and only solution (correct me if i'm wrong) is to hook de 3" drive to a PC machine and use advanced software like CPCdiskXP or something like that!

[CraigsBar]

Xexor can and does handle most protections. Butvyou need to use the "backup" command.

You will also need the brain files from side b of the xexor disc for some discs, and for some others you will need the sts copy mod fitted to your CPC *and* xexor.

[Kris]

The very best way to save your original , protected or not, is to use a Kryoflux or a Supercard pro: both devices work at the lowest level possible.

[Franck76]

Hi, thanks for your replies! 

On the CPC with xexor and without brain file, I was able to backup a real disk (les justiciers side A) to another real disk.

The problem is when I try to do that from the real disk to HxC, it fails to write the "special" tracks and says it is not formatted. It looks like HxC does not allow the CPC to format the virtual disk.

I thought maybe it could work with the right blank image file? Any ideas?

The problem with CPCDiskXP is that I would have to rebuild an old PC with a floppy connector on the motherboard...

I think kryoflux would indeed do the trick, but I wanted to explore all the possibilities with my current equipment before investing in this card. And I have a few questions about it, if someone has experience with it :

Could I plug the internal CPC drive to it? If yes, how?

If I make an image with it, can I use this image to make a .hfe file to use with HxC on my CPC?

[robcfg]

You can load kryoflux's raw files into the HxC program and save them as .hfe files.

[CraigsBar]

Hi, thanks for your replies! 

On the CPC with xexor and without brain file, I was able to backup a real disk (les justiciers side A) to another real disk.

The problem is when I try to do that from the real disk to HxC, it fails to write the "special" tracks and says it is not formatted. It looks like HxC does not allow the CPC to format the virtual disk.

I thought maybe it could work with the right blank image file? Any ideas?

The problem with CPCDiskXP is that I would have to rebuild an old PC with a floppy connector on the motherboard...

I think kryoflux would indeed do the trick, but I wanted to explore all the possibilities with my current equipment before investing in this card. And I have a few questions about it, if someone has experience with it :

Could I plug the internal CPC drive to it? If yes, how?

If I make an image with it, can I use this image to make a .hfe file to use with HxC on my CPC?

You need to make a 42 track blank HFE file, rather than a 40 track one. That should then work with xexor.