OK Dont hate me but. . . .

[HecticArt]

I had been using my trusty Atari w/ Dr T's KCS Omega for more than 20 years.

I haven't yet found any software that I like better, but I'm having a hard time with my 1040 STe and am afraid that one day it just won't start for me. I'm forced to make the change to my PC.

 

I have years worth of tracks that I need to somehow transfer over to my PC. Does anybody have any good tips for fast, safe and easy transfer from Atari to PC?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[krupkaj]

ST uses the same filesystem for floppy as PC. But programs on ST write other information to bootsector than PC. If you copy your files to properly formatted floppy you can read it in your PC. For example copy program Kobold can write PC readable disks for you.

[+DarkLord]

I had been using my trusty Atari w/ Dr T's KCS Omega for more than 20 years.

I haven't yet found any software that I like better, but I'm having a hard time with my 1040 STe and am afraid that one day it just won't start for me.  I'm forced to make the change to my PC.

 

I have years worth of tracks that I need to somehow transfer over to my PC.  Does anybody have any good tips for fast, safe and easy transfer from Atari to PC?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

958195[/snapback]

 

Just a thought, but with stock STs going for very cheap you might want to consider just getting a spare.

 

Allows you to stay in the Atari world as well... :-)

[Retro Rogue]

I had been using my trusty Atari w/ Dr T's KCS Omega for more than 20 years.

I haven't yet found any software that I like better, but I'm having a hard time with my 1040 STe and am afraid that one day it just won't start for me.  I'm forced to make the change to my PC.

 

I have years worth of tracks that I need to somehow transfer over to my PC.  Does anybody have any good tips for fast, safe and easy transfer from Atari to PC?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

958195[/snapback]

 

 

Just use any of the various ST emulators (such as Steem, Saint or Winston). Most read an ST floppy directly in your pc's floppy drive. They can also map a vritual st hard drive to your pc hard drive. So its just a matter of loading up the emulator, popping the disk in to your pc and copying files within the emulator like you would in a normal ST.

 

The other option is to mak disk images of your floppy disks. That basicly involves copying the entire disk sector by sector in to a file on your pc. Once that's done, you can actually load it as a virtual floppy disk in ST emulators or rewrite it to an actual floppy. Here's a good resource for disk image makers.

[ijor]

Just use any of the various ST emulators (such as Steem, Saint or Winston).  Most read an ST floppy directly in your pc's floppy drive.

 

Actually, most don't, certainly none of the ones you mention does. I think the only one that read physical floppies is Gemulator.

 

In any case you'll still have the limitations of the Windows OS, which can't read extended ST formats. And under modern Windows there is no solution (for this purpose) without a kernel driver.

 

The first thing to do is to check how the ST floppies are formatted. If they are in standard MS-DOS format (720k), then you can read them directly at the PC.

 

Otherwise you need, either to copy the files to MS-DOS formatted floppies at the ST. Or image the disks under DOS, with something like Makedisk, and then read the images under emulators.

[Mindfield]

The utility MAKEDISK for DOS (which I believe used to come with or was available as a separate download with the old PaCifiST emulator) can read all manner of ST disk formats, extended and otherwise. The bad news is that it only seems to work on certain PC 3.5" drive mechs.

[ijor]

The utility MAKEDISK for DOS (which I believe used to come with or was available as a separate download with the old PaCifiST emulator) can read all manner of ST disk formats, extended and otherwise.

 

Yes, and this is usually the best solution.

 

But note that is not just "for DOS". You must use it actually on "DOS", and NOT on Windows NT/2K/XP. Best is pure plain DOS, but it usually works good enough on a Win 9x/Me DOS box.

 

Btw, another possibility that we forgot to mention is Linux.

 

The bad news is that it only seems to work on certain PC 3.5" drive mechs.

 

Well, there are a few issues that depend on the actual drive:

 

Number of tracks. If the disks have more than 80 tracks then some mechanisms won't be able to read those innermost tracks. This is not new, it was already a problem in the old ST days. It was always a bad idea to use more than 80 tracks.

 

More than 10 sectors. Using 11 sectors per tracks was always unreliable. In theory this doesn't depend on the mechanism. But if the drive is a low quality one (or it's in bad condition) then the reliability might be more critical. Using 11 sectors per tracks was (also) always a bad, very bad, idea.

 

Density. Some people claim that their new drive can't read DD disks. While in theory a drive might support HD only, I never could confirm this. I never seen a drive whose specs are known to be HD only. I believe that in most, if not all of these cases the problem was something else.

[HecticArt]

Thanks for the tips everybody.

 

I found the STEEM emulator about 10 minutes after I made this post. So far it looks like it will handle most of my concerns.

 

I'll let you know if it all goes well and if I'll have a 1040 STe available for somebody to pick up as a spare/parts machine.

 

Thanks

[Retro Rogue]

Just use any of the various ST emulators (such as Steem, Saint or Winston).  Most read an ST floppy directly in your pc's floppy drive.

 

Actually, most don't, certainly none of the ones you mention does. I think the only one that read physical floppies is Gemulator.

 

 

My mistake, I was confusing it with one of those emu's ability to create virtual blank disks. Pacifist reads physical floppies on the PC though, I've done it in the past..

 

 

Otherwise you need, either to copy the files to MS-DOS formatted floppies at the ST. Or image the disks under DOS, with something like Makedisk, and then read the images under emulators.

958451[/snapback]

 

 

You don't have to do it under DOS. WDFcopy (which is what I use), works fine under XP and other windows variants.

[ijor]

You don't have to do it under DOS.  WDFcopy (which is what I use), works fine under XP and other windows variants.

 

Can you image with it disks with 10 sectors per track under XP?

[Gunstar]

Just use any of the various ST emulators (such as Steem, Saint or Winston).  Most read an ST floppy directly in your pc's floppy drive.

 

Actually, most don't, certainly none of the ones you mention does. I think the only one that read physical floppies is Gemulator.

 

In any case you'll still have the limitations of the Windows OS, which can't read extended ST formats. And under modern Windows there is no solution (for this purpose) without a kernel driver.

 

The first thing to do is to check how the ST floppies are formatted. If they are in standard MS-DOS format (720k), then you can read them directly at the PC.

 

Otherwise you need, either to copy the files to MS-DOS formatted floppies at the ST. Or image the disks under DOS, with something like Makedisk, and then read the images under emulators.

958451[/snapback]

 

You do know that there are newer version of Gemulator, like '98 and 2000, maybe even newer, I suggest grabbing the latest Gemulator 2000+ off the net and use it as your PC emulator. IIRC, the only thing with

Gemulator is that it's a Gem/TOS emulator, not a hardware emulator. but any TOS/GEM app that doesn't cheat should work great and you have all your old files intact that way on the original ST disks.

[Retro Rogue]

You don't have to do it under DOS.  WDFcopy (which is what I use), works fine under XP and other windows variants.

 

Can you image with it disks with 10 sectors per track under XP?

958845[/snapback]

 

 

I've never had problems doing any of my ST disks, including the non-msdos compat formated disks.

[ijor]

I've never had problems doing any of my ST disks, including the non-msdos compat formated disks.

 

Hmm, I just tested it under XP and it failed. Furthermore, it failed probably the worst possible way, without giving any error or warnings.

 

I tried copying a simple disk formatted with TOS, single sided, and it produced and apparently correct image. But the image was completely corrupted (this was expected, as you’ll see below) without any of the files that were in the disk.

 

Gemulator is that it's a Gem/TOS emulator, not a hardware emulator. but any TOS/GEM app that doesn't cheat should work great and you have all your old files intact that way on the original ST disks.

 

It doesn’t matter what program or emulator you use. They all will fail (reading non-MSDOS compatible disks) under modern Windows unless they use a custom kernel driver.

 

The reason is obvious if you check the source of the Windows floppy driver:

 

The driver supports a very limited number of disk geometries. Mainly the MS-DOS compatible ones, plus a couple of extended ones (used by Microsoft in the past).

 

The driver does NOT let you configure a custom geometry.

 

The driver does NOT let you read by physical sectors. You can only read logical sectors. And the translation from logical to physical will be done by the drive according to his own idea of the disk geometry.

 

What happened with WFDcopy is that he “thought” he was reading a single sided disk. But Windows considered it a double-sided disk, and then it returned the wrong sectors.

 

Btw, there is one program that has a custom kernel driver. It is called Samdisk or something like that. It works with many disks that other fail, but not in every case because the program was not designed for ST disks.

[doctorclu]

Thanks for the tips everybody.

 

I found the STEEM emulator about 10 minutes after I made this post.  So far it looks like it will handle most of my concerns.

 

I'll let you know if it all goes well and if I'll have a 1040 STe available for somebody to pick up as a spare/parts machine.

 

Thanks

958680[/snapback]

 

Well one that I do like of the original versus newer hardware is just how easily the ST does some things. It takes no effort to get a ST up and running for midi and sequencing for example. Sometimes the simplier solution is best, and the ST fit that for the midi.

[Retro Rogue]

I've never had problems doing any of my ST disks, including the non-msdos compat formated disks.

 

Hmm, I just tested it under XP and it failed. Furthermore, it failed probably the worst possible way, without giving any error or warnings.

 

I tried copying a simple disk formatted with TOS, single sided, and it produced and apparently correct image. But the image was completely corrupted (this was expected, as you’ll see below) without any of the files that were in the disk.

 

I have about 300 disks that I used that program to back up, 75% of them TOS formated and the rest commercial programs (that could be either MSDOS or TOS formated). The only ones I had problems with were ones that turned out to be corrupt all together.

 

 

 

 

What happened with WFDcopy is that he “thought” he was reading a single sided disk. But Windows considered it a double-sided disk, and then it returned the wrong sectors.

 

No, I didn't think anything of the type. I have both single and double sided disks that went in to prefectly readable images. Perhaps its a problem in a newer version of WFDcopy?

[ijor]

What happened with WFDcopy is that he “thought” he was reading a single sided disk. But Windows considered it a double-sided disk, and then it returned the wrong sectors.

 

No, I didn't think anything of the type.

 

Oh!, no, no, no. That’s NOT what I mean. My bad English “betrayed” me. I mean the program, and not YOU “thought” … (I guess I should have said “it” and not “he”). Please forgive me, I guess it sounded very harsh.

 

I have both single and double sided disks that went in to prefectly readable images.  Perhaps its a problem in a newer version of WFDcopy?

 

I don’t think so. My guess is that you backed up most disks under older versions of Windows, probably Win 9X. As a matter of fact, according the docs, only rather recently it supports (sort of) newer Windows.

 

The limitation is at the OS, or more precisely, at its floppy driver as I explained in the previous message. This limitation is for all Win-NT based versions (NT,2K,XP,2003). And again, there is nothing you can do to workaround this limitation except using a custom Windows kernel driver. It doesn’t affect Win 95/98/Me because these are actually MS-DOS based.

 

You still can use it (as many other similar programs) under modern Windows for certain disks. Double sided TOS formatted disks will be fine, disregarding the boot sector issue. But single sided, 10 sectors or more per track, or more than 80 tracks will fail.

[jens]

I think the only one that read physical floppies is Gemulator.

And PaCifiST.