3.5" to 3" Disc Copy

[MartinW]

I'm struggling with a few disks. Most work fine using disckit3 (on a 6128) with 3.5" as B, 3" as A, copying the DSK using CPCDiskXP on PC, then going from B to A on the 6128 but some just point blank refuse with a message about the disk being changed on a particular track.

Maxam v1 springs to mind. Wanted to run it from 3" with my code in the 3.5" but it wouldn't get past track 2. Is this likely to be down to copy protection, some fault at my end or are the DSK images bad maybe? Maxam I'm pretty sure came from the wiki.

Ta,
Martin

[TFM]

Well, sounds like your disc had a problem. Else try Discology to copy to 3".

[MacDeath]

Does Discology handle 3"1/2 DD disks, those in 720K ?


Or must we use the disk as a "normal CPC disk" (178K-180K only)


Also did someone ever tried those double side 3" Disk drives that could be found on some PCW?

[MartinW]

Ill have a look into discology when I get a moment - probably over the weekend now. I guess it could be the disk but i'm pretty sure I've used more than one now and they're brand new (DSDD) so I'd like to think not..

[TFM]

Does Discology handle 3"1/2 DD disks, those in 720K ?

Martins aim it imho to copy to 3" and that has 40 Tracks SS, so the 3.5" will be 40 Tracks SS too. Right?!!

[MartinW]

That is correct - the DSK is in the standard CPC format in the first place and so when written to 3.5" on the PC using CPCDiskXP, my understanding is that it should be a straight sector / track copy with no conversion.

I'm sure I read somewhere about the possibility of some of the DSK's having slightly duff or missing sector information in them that the emulators just ignored? That's getting a little beyond my knowledge specifically as far as the CPC goes for the moment though so I don't know if that's relevant or not. It's also perfectly possible I dreamt, or completely misunderstood what I read too mind 

[MartinW]

OK, this is pretty well driving me potty now!

I don't see how it can be the 3.5" discs I'm using as I've tried various ones, all new. Using discology a fast copy always fails on track or sector 2 (whichever it is) and it immediately tells me to use Ultra copy, which I do. It then reads the source disk fine and completes but the resulting 3" disk can't be read, I just get "Abort, Retry, Cancel" at the end.

Something else that is odd is that Discology, and others don't like the A/B jumper that I have in my drive cable. If I try to copy from A (3.5) to B (3) it actually thinks the 3.5" is both A & B. Therefore in order to do the copy I'm telling discology to copy from A to A and after reading the source I'm removing the jumper so it then writes to the 3" disc.

So now I'm wondering if there is something else up, or maybe I need a proper AB/BA switch / hack?