Floppy Emu Questions

[SlateBlue]

I received my Floppy Emu in the mail this past Friday. I'm impressed with this piece of hardware and feel it's well worth the price. For some reason, the Floppy Emu didn't recognize several image files I downloaded from the garden. These image files were downloaded onto a Power Mac G5 and unstuffed using StuffIt expander. Is there something I did wrong? Is there a special way to prep disk images for use with the Floppy Emu and compact Macs?

 

[bigmessowires]

What type of disk images are they? The Floppy Emu software supports disk images in DiskCopy 4.2 format or "raw" (no header) format, such as typically used with Mini vMac. No special preparation is needed.

 

[SlateBlue]

.img - All I did was download the images, which were compressed in a StuffIt archive, unstuffed them, then transferred the resulting .img files to the SD card. As a test, I tried opening the .img files in Mini vMac and they wouldn't mount. So, I created Mac OS Standard disk images and transferred the contents of the original disk image to the newly created one. Mini vMac was able to mount the new image, but the image still wouldn't show up in it's respective directory within the Floppy Emu. I'm thinking I'm doing something wrong, just not sure what.

 

[bigmessowires]

I'm not sure what's meant by Mac OS Standard disk images, but try the blank disk images from here, which are in raw format: http://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/extras/blanks/ 

 

[SlateBlue]

I'm sorry. Mac OS Standard format.

 

[SlateBlue]

To clarify, I was using Disk Utility within OS X Leopard on a Power Mac G5 to create disk images formatted as Mac OS Standard, making them 1.4 MB in size with no partition map, then transferring the contents of the images acquired from the garden to the newly created disk images. My issue is that the Floppy Emu wouldn't see the downloaded disk images after I simply unstuffed them and moved them to the SD card. The downloaded disk images end with .img. I'm guessing this doesn't imply the specific format of the image itself? Forgive me if my questions seem elementary; the process of getting software from the web to a classic Mac is new to me, so is working with disk images. I followed the directions at the link provided by bigmessowires: I downloaded the .zip file containing the blank disk images, unzipped it, used a 1440k.dsk image, changed the extension to .dmg so it would mount under OS X Leopard, mounted the volume, then transferred the files I wanted to this disk image. After unmounting the image and transferring it to the SD card, it was recognized by the Floppy Emu and I was able to mount it on my classic Mac. Seems like a redundant process to transfer the contents of one disk image to another, but if it works, I'm good with it. Thanks for the guidance, bigmessowires.

EDIT - Here is the link I used that describes how to work with disk images.

 

[just.in.time]

I had an odd issue where unzipping a Zipped image file in OS X would make the img unreadable. I had to unzip in OS 9. This solved the problem. If you can, give that a try. I should note I wasn't using a Floppy Emu, but it was with files from the garden.

 

[bigmessowires]

Right, a filename extension of .img just tells you it's an image file of some kind, but not what type or format. Disk Utility under OSX probably creates a UDIF format disk image, or something else similarly modern that's intended for use with 21st century computers. Check out the section "Working with Disk Images" in the Floppy Emu manual for some discussion of disk image types, and the programs you can use to create and edit them. In general, you shouldn't need to copy the contents of one disk image to another, unless you're specifically wanting to create a different format or size of disk image.

As for Macintosh Garden, did you have an issue with all the disks you downloaded, or only some? It's possible you grabbed some disk images that were in DiskCopy 6.3 format, which won't work on the Floppy Emu nor on any Windows system with Mini vMac. The maintainers ask people not to use DC63 format due to its cross-platform compatibility problems, but some do it anyway. If that's the case, you can run DiskCopy 6.3 under OS 9 or earlier and re-save the file in DiskCopy 4.2 format. Checking the type and creator of the file should tell you if it's a DC63 disk image, I think. There was a discussion about this here on 68kmla a few months ago.

 

[SlateBlue]

Some image files worked while others did not. Thanks for the information. I think this is what I was missing for a lot of this to make sense. When I get some time today, I'll see what format the faulty images are and post that info here.

 

[ktkm]

I have a Model B (with a Mac Plus and a Mac IIcx/ROM-inator II)-- and I have had best result with “.dsk” images that I create using SheepShaver (for some reason SheepShaver works better than BasiliskII creating continuous .dsk). If I then mount them inside BasiliskII (MacOS 7.x/DiskCopy6.3.3) and then put them back in OSX -- OSX can mount them like “normal” disk images.

 

[bigmessowires]

Each disk image file must be in a contiguous range of sectors on the SD card, in order for the disk emulation to work correctly, otherwise you'll see the warning about a non-contiguous file. This doesn't have anything to do with the file itself, but rather with how the file is stored on the card. Normally this “just works” without any special effort, but if you’ve repeatedly added and deleted files form the SD card, then they may become fragmented across different sections of the card. The easiest fix is to delete all the files on the SD card, and then copy them all back. Or reformat the SD card, and then replace the files. A defragmenting tool should also work, but the other methods are easier.

 

[SlateBlue]

Here is the info from an image that doesn't work. Screenshot was taken under OS 9.2.2. The option to convert this image to DiskCopy 4.2 format is greyed-out. I can only select Read-Only, Read-Only Compressed, or Read-Write.

 

[tjjq44]

13700k!!!! This isn't a standard floppy image (400k, 800k or 1440k) this is why you can't convert it to DC42 format and also why your emu can't use it since it's waiting for floppy images 

 

[tjjq44]

The way I make use of these big images, is via FTP protocol from my PC (server) to my 540c (client), then I can mount them on the desktop

 

[SlateBlue]

13700k!!!! This isn't a standard floppy image (400k, 800k or 1440k) this is why you can't convert it to DC42 format and also why your emu can't use it since it's waiting for floppy images

Funny how obvious it is to me now that you point it out. Is there a good way to break this up into 1440k images? Is it as straightforward as creating enough 1440k images to hold each file or folder?

 

[tjjq44]

Mount your 12Mb image on your modern computer and look if any of the files would fit on a 1.4Mb floppy. If it is the case, make as many "writable" 1.4Mb floppy images as needed, and then convert them to DC42 format If one or more files are bigger, try to compress or split them with appropriate software

 

[Paralel]

Better yet, run your Floppy EMU in HD20 mode, open the IMG file and dump the contents into an HD20 DSK file, then you will be able to access the entire thing without having to mess with multiple disk images

 

[tjjq44]

Yes but remember only a few mac models can use HD20 mode

 

[Paralel]

I think its most models that can use a Floppy EMU