Robert2D3D Software Archival Service

[Mac128]

Robert2D3D is offering a 400K/800K software backup service on eBay for $10 including shipping.

This auction is for Historical Preservation of YOUR Apple 400k/800k Floppy Diskettes into Image Master Files AND transfered as shown to HFS formatted CD. Early Powerbooks like the Portable or 1400 Series Shown can see disks in all formats 400k/800k/and 1.4MB. I transfer these files with SCSI and a ZIP disk over to a Powerbook Lombard with an early CD Burner thru USB. The CD's can be read as images to duplicate the original disk or the files and programs can be stored, The Wallstreet is last Powerbook that can produce the early 400k/800k disks, and I use the CD module to download the files and switch to a Superdrive module for reproducing vintage disk as needed. FREE SHIPPING USPS

I wonder if that $10 includes returning your original floppy disks to you. Also, $10 is quite generous to transfer what could be dozens of disks for some, or is that $10 per disk? Hopefully he also makes actual disks from the images to confirm that they copied correctly as well.

His method seems to involve exclusively the use of a Superdrive on a PowerBook 1400 which can technically read and write 400K & 800K drives, however the minimum OS it can use is 7.5.3. Since System 7 dropped support for 400K disks for all practical purposes, it would not be my first choice for image mastering. The fact he uses a Wallstreet to reproduce 400K disks, is surprising considering that System 8 has no support for 400K disks and produces somewhat unreliable copies.

My preferred method is to use at a maximum a Macintosh SE (non-FDHD), running System 6, with an 800K drive and make 400K disk images with am actual 400K drive attached, so as to avoid any incompatibilities introduced by vintage media, especially when making archival copies. I probably am too anal about this, but I've found it is the most reliable way when dealing with the complexities and quirks of these old disk formats.

 

[MrMacPlus]

Can't you just do this yourself?

When I have disks to back up I just get Disk Copy out on the Plus, if it has problems reading the disk I switch to my SE. I do need to convert the images later on because OS X doesn't like Disk Copy 4.2 images very well for some reason and corrupts the checksums. It works, however.