8-Bit File Copier With Retry

[ziggystar]

Is there a file copy utility that has a retry option? I have some really bad disks I need to get some files off of. I think if I had a Retry option I would be able to get them to read one last time. What about disk copy utilities with retry? They all seem to choke when a bad sector is found.

 

thanks!

[Gunstar]

that's a very good question and I'm not sure there are, as such options weren't widely available on these primitive machines...but I think some of the hardware copiers like the 'Happy' devices for 810 and 1050 drives might have such things. But is it really neccessary anyway? I have lots of old disks that have problems loading, and I just downloaded .atr images of the games off the net, and made new disks...which you'd probably have to do to get said copier itself anyway, right? I do believe the A.P.E prosystem program has features like this, but if you have it, then you also have the means to just download the needed game file and make a new disk also...

[ziggystar]

These are one of a kind source code disks, not typical game downloads. I do ned to be able to read these disks.

 

How about a good whole disk copier. Maybe one that can do copy prottected disks better because it has a sector nibler? That would help.

I know both of these utilities exist on C-64 but I have only found one for the 8-bit. Disk Wizard II seems to be much better than DOS copy.

[Goochman]

If you have a Happy modified drive I think the Happy Copier will do its best to copy anything regardless of disk problems (there is a limit though)

[ziggystar]

and how or where do I get a happy drive? or how do I modify it?

 

[Gunstar]

and how or where do I get a happy drive? or how do I modify it?

 

 

I think some of the online Atari dealers like B&C and Best E. still sell the happy modifications and happy modified drives.

[Gunstar]

These are one of a kind source code disks, not typical game downloads. I do ned to be able to read these disks.

 

How about a good whole disk copier. Maybe one that can do copy prottected disks better because it has a sector nibler? That would help.

I know both of these utilities exist on C-64 but I have only found one for the 8-bit. Disk Wizard II seems to be much better than DOS copy.

 

I remember that there were several disk copiers like the 'chipmunk' for example, but I'm not sure if they were what your looking for or not, they generally were accompanied by a list of commercial software that they could successfully copy, so it may not be your standard sector or bit copy program...I'm sure some did exist, it's just been so long now that either the 'Happy' or 'duplicator' disk drive mods are your best bet, they upgrade the single and enhanced density disk drives to full double density too, so they have more than one benefit, they generally also increased the speeds of the drives at least three-fold.

[Holmesw]

I found when doing these 'one of a kind' disks, that Copymate 3.7? was the best sector copier program to use. I copied various dodgy disks over to the PC with this. But it primarly job is to copy Single or Enhanced density disks on the Atari. This has the option to retry bad sectors 1 time to 4 times? before it gives up and mores onto the next sector. So it never stops a copy because of one bad or unreadable sector.

 

The original version came out with Chipmunk, but I prefer this 3.7XE version. ATR should be available online somewhere. :-)

 

One thing I noticed with some disks I acquired last year, they wouldnt read properly when first tried, and looking at the disks, they had spots of 'mould/fungi' which looked like it had long since died. So I got out a qtip with alchohol solution on it, and cleaned those spots off. All but one of those 200 disks were readable after that. A long process, but many undumped games were found. :-)

 

Holmes