Got my SIO2PC all hooked up

[+Stephen]

Well, the subject says it. I am just now beginnin to archive my floppy collection (some 200 odd disks, double sided). Unfortunately, I am having trouble reading from the Kodak brand disks. I remember they were terrible when new as well.

 

I know I have some Vulcan software disks that I don't recall seeing in the TOSEC sets I have.

 

I will post everything I have when it is all backed up and somewhat organized (bare minimum will be organized by DOS type). No promises since this is being done in my limited free time. I am not sure where I will post the archive, since I don't know the final size. I guess worst case is still under 5MB, so I may be able to host it via my ISP. It may just be best for me to upload it to a bewsgroup. I will keep you updated.

 

Stephen Anderson

 

I did have a thought. I am using a USDoubled 1050 drive. The mechanical assembly was replaced a few years back from a drive I got off EBay. Is it possible this drive is slightly out of alignment compared to the drive that wrote the disks? If so, how can I align it (I don't have a scope - is there a diag program)?

[+Stephen]

Excuse the spelling errors - I cannot edit the post and I am tired. Oh - and watching error sectors pile up and make a disk take about 30 minutes to copy. This sucks.

 

Stephen Anderson

[classics]

In my experience Atari disks are incredibly reliable. You can often recover a disk thats mostly unreadable and full of CRC errors.

 

Take a new disk with a clean sleeve and slice it open at the top so you can fish out the diskette without ruining the sleeve.

 

Then take the old disk and do the same. Once you have the old disk out wipe it carefully on both sides with a slightly damp cloth to remove loose particles and place it in the new disk sleeve.

 

I know everyone is going to say im just nuts for telling you to water clean a diskette, but it really does work. It works expecially well with 'scratchy' disks that wont read at all because they (and the sleeve) are fouled with loose magnetic flakes from the old disk.

 

Another thing to do is take the cover off your 1050. While you are backing up your old disks the head is going to get fouled by the disks and can make it have trouble reading disks. If you get a really nasty scratchy one in there it might stop working completely.

 

With the cover off you can clean the r/w head with a foam swab and some alcohol when you find a bad disk or start getting read errors.

 

I've repaired a lot of 1050 drives and bad alignment is very rare even after all these years in service. Its usually only a problem with drives where someone has been inside screwing around and broken the glue that keeps the head in place or messed with the stepper motor.

 

Steve

[+Stephen]

Thanks for the advice - I will give it a try. One thing I did discover last night, was that even when the duplicate disk option failed (or had lots of errors), most of the time a file by file copy would work just fine. I see this is going to take a lot more time thn I had first thought.

 

Stephen Anderson