Archiving Original Disks with the TurboFreezer

[+Larry]

I've been working on this for the past month or so, and it now really works well for me. Basically, it involves using a modified drive such as a 1050 Happy or Super Archiver to copy the disk, and then freezing the system's data (which includes the copy protection information necessary to write out a new disk). Then saving the frozen data to regular ATR images. That means that the data can be stored on modern media, and can be written out at any time to create a new disk! No ATX that you can't write out (at this time) -- just good ol' ATR's. You could store them on real floppies, but that would sort of defeat the intent. Also, no Catweasel, Kryoflux, (etc.) and no PC drives needed. In short, except for the storage on modern media and some type of SIO2PC, specialized PC hardware is left out of the loop.

 

I've had good success with this, and have not encountered any disks that I couldn't preserve this way. But the original disk has to be one that can be copied with the modified 1050. So there are likely some disks that will be immune to this method. From what I can tell, archiving original software seems to be a small "niche" activity. It does require a fair amount of time. I've tried to get a few folks to try this, and so far no interest or they lack the hardware.

 

I've attached a WORD file that explains the procedure in more detail. But here are a few suggestions if you are adventuresome and want to try this out.:

1) A 64K machine with no expanded memory works best, since the Super Archiver (and maybe others) will attempt to use the extra memory which complicates the archiving process.

2) Make sure that you have the latest freezer (flash) software from Hias.

3) The Super Archiver works best for me. And while you are making the archive, do write out a test copied disk to make sure it works correctly. Nothing worse than creating a bad archive.

4) When you create a title for the ATR image, make sure that you indicate what copy software that you used -- did you use SKEW; did it require a Happy PDB file, etc.

5) As with any copy procedure, make sure that your original disk is write-protected -- "just in case!"

 

So, if you try it out, please let me know how it works for you. It's not terribly complicated, but will take a bit of experience to get familiar with the process.

 

-Larry

Archiving with the TurboFreezer.doc