Guest Arthur Rhodes Posted September 2, 2007 Posted September 2, 2007 I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. Making copies with the drum machine is extremely slow and tedious, so I want to do it with my computer. How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its format is unknown and probably not supported. All I need to do is make a bit for bit copy of the floppy to another floppy. Does anyone know how I could do that? Thanks
Guest philo Posted September 2, 2007 Posted September 2, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk "Arthur Rhodes" <arhodes@spammers.die> wrote in message news:XIqdnUQiY5KLrUbbnZ2dnUVZ_s-pnZ2d@comcast.com... > I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly > what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. > > I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. Making copies with the > drum machine is extremely slow and tedious, so I want to do it with > my computer. > > How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its > format is unknown and probably not supported. All I need to do is make a > bit for bit copy of the floppy to another floppy. > > Does anyone know how I could do that? > > Thanks Maybe a utility such as WinImage would do the trick
Guest Newbie Coder Posted September 2, 2007 Posted September 2, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk Arthur, What if you format the floppies in the computer first, use them in your drum machine & then try to copy them? Also, can't you install the drum machine as a MIDI device? -- Newbie Coder (It's just a name) "philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote in message news:%23D$092a7HHA.464@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... > > "Arthur Rhodes" <arhodes@spammers.die> wrote in message > news:XIqdnUQiY5KLrUbbnZ2dnUVZ_s-pnZ2d@comcast.com... > > I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly > > what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. > > > > I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. Making copies with the > > drum machine is extremely slow and tedious, so I want to do it with > > my computer. > > > > How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its > > format is unknown and probably not supported. All I need to do is make a > > bit for bit copy of the floppy to another floppy. > > > > Does anyone know how I could do that? > > > > Thanks > > > Maybe a utility such as WinImage would do the trick > >
Guest Todd H. Posted September 3, 2007 Posted September 3, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk Arthur Rhodes <arhodes@spammers.die> writes: > I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly > what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. > > I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. Making copies with the > drum machine is extremely slow and tedious, so I want to do it with > my computer. > > How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its > format is unknown and probably not supported. All I need to do is make a > bit for bit copy of the floppy to another floppy. > > Does anyone know how I could do that? The unix command dd does what you describe. You can find any number of bootable Linux CD's that you can boot into and that won't touch your environment otherwise. This one is nice and light: http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page You'll download an .iso image of the bootable CD and use your favorite CD burning program (EZ CD Creator, Nero, a Windows ISO burning plugin) to take that iso (a recorded CD image) and make it into a burned Cd. Don't make the mistake of trying to take the ISO file itself and stick it on a regular CD-R as a file. Once you have that CD, boot to it, and from there, I'd try this: dd bs=1 count=1474560 if=/dev/fd0 of=/tmp/floppy.img Swap a fresh disk into the drive and then: dd bs=1 count=1474560 if=/tmp/floppy.img of=/dev/fd0 You may have to massage the count to match the disk size. With a block size of 1, you're taking raw blocks of the floopy drive 0 and stickin them in a temp file, and the next command just does the opposite. If you're a linux newbie, you can find all the details on the dd command using the man command (man is for "manual"): man dd Another tack you can try using that same bootable cd is to try the partimage program (a Ghost clone). I've never played with it with floppies though. Let us know how it turns out. It sounds like a fun little experiment. Best regards, -- Todd H. http://www.toddh.net/
Guest Peter Foldes Posted September 3, 2007 Posted September 3, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk Start\Run a:\copy and follow prompts -- Peter Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged. "Arthur Rhodes" <arhodes@spammers.die> wrote in message news:XIqdnUQiY5KLrUbbnZ2dnUVZ_s-pnZ2d@comcast.com... >I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly > what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. > > I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. Making copies with the > drum machine is extremely slow and tedious, so I want to do it with > my computer. > > How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its > format is unknown and probably not supported. All I need to do is make a > bit for bit copy of the floppy to another floppy. > > Does anyone know how I could do that? > > Thanks
Guest Todd H. Posted September 3, 2007 Posted September 3, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk "Peter Foldes" <okf22@hotmail.com> writes: > Start\Run a:\copy and follow prompts This doesn't work...but it did trigger an alternate solution to my unix dd-based solution that might be one hell of a lot easier. Boy it's been years since I've copied a floppy. Look into the DOS diskcopy command. c:\> diskcopy a: a: It will prompt you to swap disks as appropriate. If the help for diskcopy is to be believed, it makes a sector by sector copy of the disk, and should work on any format. Best Regards, -- Todd H. http://www.toddh.net/
Guest Andy Posted September 3, 2007 Posted September 3, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk Diskcopy Copies the contents of the floppy disk in the source drive to a formatted or unformatted floppy disk in the destination drive. Used without parameters, diskcopy uses the current drive for the source disk and the destination disk. <http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/diskcopy.mspx?mfr=true> On Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:50:13 -0600, Arthur Rhodes <arhodes@spammers.die> wrote: >I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly >what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. > >I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. Making copies with the >drum machine is extremely slow and tedious, so I want to do it with >my computer. > >How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its >format is unknown and probably not supported. All I need to do is make a >bit for bit copy of the floppy to another floppy. > >Does anyone know how I could do that? > >Thanks
Guest Holger Petersen Posted September 3, 2007 Posted September 3, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk Arthur Rhodes <arhodes@spammers.die> writes: >I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly >what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. >I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. >How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its >format is unknown and probably not supported. >Does anyone know how I could do that? Just try ANADISK and/or TELEDISK. They work best under pure DOS. And/or ask in comp.os.cpm; especially for download-sites. Good luck, Holger
Guest Paul Randall Posted September 3, 2007 Posted September 3, 2007 Re: Bitwise copy of floppy disk There are an endless variety of ways to make it difficult to make copies of floppies. Specialized software can change the number of sectors per track or write its own stuff in the intersector gap, or whatever. The popular computer magazines used to have ads for software and machines that could 'copy any format'. If you don't get an error when you view a directory of the floppy in Windows, I would give WinImage a try. I assume you have googled for the drum machine's name and the words copy floppy. -Paul Randall "Arthur Rhodes" <arhodes@spammers.die> wrote in message news:XIqdnUQiY5KLrUbbnZ2dnUVZ_s-pnZ2d@comcast.com... >I have a floppy disk with a proprietary format. I don't know exactly > what the format is. It's created on a drum machine. > > I'd like to make duplicates of this floppy. Making copies with the > drum machine is extremely slow and tedious, so I want to do it with > my computer. > > How could I do that? Windows can't read the floppy since its > format is unknown and probably not supported. All I need to do is make a > bit for bit copy of the floppy to another floppy. > > Does anyone know how I could do that? > > Thanks
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