> On Nov 3, 2022, at 5:57 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 2:08 PM Grant Taylor via cctalk
> <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> n00b alert
>>
>> Does anyone have a 101 level boot strap guide for someone wanting to get
>> into creating better-than-dd disk images?
>>
>> I'm finding myself back in a position where I want to image / preserve
>> multiple 5¼ & 3½ inch disks. I think all of them are PC compatible
>> disks. Probably standard FAT-12 and a handful of super capacity disk
>> formats from the likes of IBM / Microsoft where they tried to squeeze
>> 1.6 (?) MB on a 3½ inch disk.
>
> If they are 5¼ & 3½ inch disks which are not copy protected and are
> readable with standard PC compatible floppy controllers, but not
> necessarily limited to standard DOS formats, and you had a older PC
> with a floppy controller which you could set up to boot into real mode
> DOS, I would start with Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk program.
An example of a non-PC format 5.25 inch disk that normal drives can read would
be the DEC RX50 floppy, which has 10 sectors per track rather than the PC
standard 9 sectors. But a standard drive will read and write those just fine,
if it's told to use that format. I did that ages ago in DOS, but in the past
15 years or so I've only used Linux for that job. It's a simple matter, you
just need to know what the format is.
paul
