Floppy Emu, need help please to convert diskcopy 6.3 to 4.2

[captaineos]

Hi everyone

It seems my $230 device can't read standard DiskCopy 6 files.  It simply ignores any disk images even with the file extension .img

The ever fast in replying Steve from BMOW suggets compatibility is only raw (.dsk) and disk copy 4.2 (.img) files, and if I'd like to use DiskCopy 6 that they need to converted before use. 

How can I do this?  I've hit a road block

The Floppy Emu isn't a mass storage device so I cant open the .img files on say a Mac SE on SSW 7.1 and manually open each image file and save them as the old disk copy format.

Please help! 

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I was actually thinking of creating a Wiki page for this. 

Do you have Mini vMac on your Mac/Windows/Linux? If not go here. *

1/ Download Mini vMac.

2/ You will need a ROM image as well. You can find one of these rather easily on the net (for copyright reasons we can't distribute them freely on 68kmla). 

3/ Get a bootable .dsk image and boot from it on Mini vMac. It's better to use a Hard Drive one so you won't have to swap between emulated floppies. I've used System 6 and it works great, even for MFS images.

4/ Then download the blanks archive. You will find HFS and MFS volumes in there, floppies but also HDs. Some are DC4.2 compatible. The "K" folder is for images<1Meg and "M" is for images>1Meg (as the name suggests). MFS is for early Mac Systems (until 3.2 I believe). 

5/ Mount your DC6 image on Mini vMac.

6/ Mount one of the blank images. For you I think it's best to choose one that's inside the DC42 folder.

If you want to create disks for a 128k/512k with original ROMs and the 400k floppy drive, choose an image in the MFS section.

If that's for a 512ke, Plus, SE etc... use a 800k or a Hard Disk one. 

If you're using a computer with a 1.44mb floppy drive, you can use any image. MFS is not recommended though.

7/ Then you can duplicate the DC6 "floppy" by just dragging it to the blank one inside Mini vMac. You will have a DC4.2 compatible image.

       (for a 400k image, you have to drag the contents from the DC6 floppy to the blank DC42 one)

8/ Drag your image to your FloppyEMU and it's good to go

9/ Enjoy

PS: Some of the software available on the MacGarden don't come as .img or .image or .dsk images. Sometimes, you just get the file in a folder or in a .sit file. If you want to create DC42 images, you will need OS9 and DC6 to create an image in the first place. Then follow the guide above to create a DC42 image.

* If you have an Intel Mac, you can download Mini vMac "Ready-to-go" from the Mac Garden, you get the ROM file and a HD boot image. Don't use the SSW7.5.3 one. System 6 is better here. The SE (3rd download) seems good!

 

[tanaquil]

CaptainEos, what is your setup? What are you using for a modern mac?

Indeed, FloppyEMU can't read DC 6 images, I discovered this myself. 

Here is my workflow:

-- Move a bunch of DC 6 images that I want to convert from my modern Mac (running El Cap) to my OS 9 mac (a MDD G4), using a flash drive initialized in the OS 9 mac so both macs can read and write it.

-- Run DC 6 or (better) a copy of DiskDup Pro - DiskDup Pro can save to .dsk format which FloppyEMU prefers to DC 4.2. 

-- Open each image individually, save as preferred format (and change the extension if desired), rinse and repeat.

-- Move the flash drive back to my modern mac, where I can plug in my micro SD card. Move the images to the micro SD card.

It is slow and tedious but it works. 

BadGoldEagle's solution, just posted as I was writing this, for emulators will also work - thanks, I was hoping someone would make a suggestion for the emulator side! I use the emulator solution when I have free-floating files I want to add to a .dsk image, but I prefer direct conversion when I have a pre-existing img file because it preserves the original disk data (no changed file dates, etc).

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I use a lot of DiskDup but I've never used the "Pro" version. I forgot that it could create DC4.2 files from images.

If you want to use an emulator (again), you can get SheepShaver running on your modern computer, get OS9 on it. And download DiskDup Pro.

That's another solution.

 

[tanaquil]

Since captaineos seems to be a new FloppyEMU user (like me!), note that while DC 4.2 image files are ideal for imaging original physical media, Steve from BMOW has pointed out that FloppyEMU really prefers dsk to image (either will work, but image is slightly slower at read/write time and may cause the image files to appear corrupted to other utilities, when in fact they are not - only a problem if you routinely move files back and forth).

DiskDup is a great utility, whether in Pro or earlier versions. I forget how many save options the earlier versions have, but early versions of DiskDup+ can run under System 7. I don't usually bother converting under System 7 though because moving images back and forth with my modern mac is harder, and the conversion process is slower.

I wish I could find the author on the web so I could pay him his shareware fee, but since I can't, it is useful to know that you can eliminate the shareware limitations of pre-Pro versions by typing three spaces in the "quantity" field. If anyone ever locates the author, let me know! 80's shareware authors should have a directory or something on the web so we classic users can find them and send them their $15 or whatever. In 201x dollars, what a deal.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I wish I could find the author on the web so I could pay him his shareware fee

If you manage to find him, let me know I'll send the gentleman a little something too

 

[tanaquil]

>>PS: Some of the software available on the MacGarden don't come as .img or .image or .dsk images. Sometimes, you just get the file in a folder or in a .sit file. If you want to create DC42 images, you will need OS9 and DC6 to create an image in the first place. Then follow the guide above to create a DC42 image.

Re the PS: when I end up with a folder that contains only files, not a disk image, I convert the folder to an HFS image using HFS Disk Maker in my modern mac, drop the HFS image into minivmac, and then just copy files to a blank disk image exactly as you suggest in the previous part of the guide; no need to go through OS9/DC 6 for this.

 

[bigmessowires]

I'm sorry to hear you're still having trouble with this, captaineos. Since I didn't hear back from you after the last email, I thought you had already resolved it.

The inability to use DC6.3 image files isn't due to my laziness, but is because these image files are actually Macintosh files themselves, and have a resource fork. There's no way to store such files on an SD card with a standard FAT32 filesystem without them becoming corrupted, or to store them on a Windows computer. This is why DiskCopy 4.2 format is the most popular standard for software emulators and solid-state disk replacements. 

The steps posted by BadGoldEagle are good, though I will stress tanaquil's point: that method won't create an exact copy of the disk image, but instead will create a new disk containing the same files as the old one. The locations of icons in the Finder window may change, and other subtle things like contents of the desktop file. These differences may or may not be important, depending on what you're doing.

I prefer to make an exact copy, which involves opening the disk image in DiskCopy 6.3 (or DiskDup+ or Pro) and then re-saving it as a DiskCopy 4.2 or raw image. As memory serves, I think DiskCopy 6.3 won't run under Mini vMac, so you need to use one of the other software emulators like SheepShaver or Basilisk II to do the job. 

using a flash drive initialized in the OS 9 mac so both macs can read and write it.

I'm curious to know exactly what you did there... I thought recent versions of OSX can only read from HFS volumes, but not write to them.

 

[MJ313]

Yeah, it's those blasted Stuffit compressed files...  .sit compressed in software requiring Expander 5.5...  which won't run on a Plus... so MinivMac is of no help if you can't even uncompress the .image in the first place.  Probably a way to do it in Basilisk, but I haven't gone that route.

It's pretty sweet going from my MBP directly to FloppyEmu, but that bridge machine still leads a very significant life for all this retro Mac stuff.

 

[tanaquil]

I hate files compressed with Stuffit 5.5 or higher.

One possibility is to unstuff on my OS 9 bridge machine (which does indeed play an essential role in the hobby these days), but recently I find it easier to unstuff on the modern mac with Unarchiver, put it into an HFS image, re-stuff with a nice polite lower version of Stuffit inside minivmac, and then use ExportFl to move the new sit file back into the modern mac environment, and from there onto my private FTP network. I find it faster than trying to move files to OS 9 and back.

Of course, this only works if you're working on a modern Mac, not in Windows or Linux. Otherwise, as you say, you'd probably have to use Basilisk or SheepShaver, which I have never got around to setting up on my mac. I'm very System 6/7-centric right now.

 

[tanaquil]

I'm curious to know exactly what you did there... I thought recent versions of OSX can only read from HFS volumes, but not write to them.

OSX can only read from HFS Standard, but it can read/write HFS+. OSX uses even further modifications (extended, journaled, whatever) that OS9 can't recognize, and I can never remember which is the best format to use for maximum compatibility, which is why I usually format the flash drive in OS 9 HFS+ to be safe. If you know what you're doing, I think it is also possible to choose the correct format under OSX itself.

By contrast, my System 7 machine can only read HFS Standard, which means that in order to image floppies on my System 6/7 machine, I write to a Zip disk formatted in HFS Standard and then move the Zip disk to either my OS 9 machine (where I can read/write) or to my OS X machine (where I can only read and copy onto the HD). Or I can stuff files on my System 7 machine and use my private FTP connection to move them to other machines.

It really is bizarre, the hoops we have to jump through nowadays to move things around. Things were so much easier in 2001, when OS9/X machines abounded!

 

[tanaquil]

As memory serves, I think DiskCopy 6.3 won't run under Mini vMac, so you need to use one of the other software emulators like SheepShaver or Basilisk II to do the job.

Oops, forgot this part: DiskCopy 6.3 requires System 7, but mini vmac can run System 7 up to 7.5, so as far as I know DC 6 should work under vmac in System 7. I haven't done much testing of DC 6.3 in minivmac, though, since I haven't usually needed it; I'm much more likely to run DC 6 on one of my vintage machines.

 

[techknight]

there needs to be a magic program. 

press 1 button, presto. All done. lol. 

 

[bigmessowires]

I discovered a much easier way to convert DiskCopy 6.3 images into raw disk images under OSX, with no emulators or OS9 machines needed. I tested this with OSX 10.11 El Capitan. It uses OSX's built-in hdiutil command-line program and the standard dd utility.

Open a terminal window, and type:

hdiutil convert myDC63disk.img -format DC42 -o myDC42disk.img

dd ibs=1 skip=84 if=myDC42disk.img of=myrawdisk.dsk

That's it. The resulting .dsk file can be copied to your SD card and used directly with Floppy Emu.

Explanation: Step 1 uses hdiutil to convert the image into DC42 format. However, there appears to be a bug in hdiutil's DC42 implementation, and the "size" bytes in the header are written in the wrong byte order. It will report an error "convert failed - corrupt image". You could patch those bytes manually, but it's far easier to just strip off the whole 84-byte DC42 header and make a raw disk image instead. That's what step 2 does.

If you're not sure if an image file is in Disk Copy 6.3 format, hdiutil can also tell you that:

hdiutil imageinfo mydisk.img

If the output includes the line "Class Name: CNDIFDiskImage", then mydisk.img is an NDIF format disk image that was likely created by DiskCopy 6.3. Also look for a line that says "partition-length", which is the number of 512 byte blocks in the disk. It should be 2880 for a 1440K disk or 1600 for a 800K disk.

I tested this successfully for a couple of DiskCopy 6.3 images I grabbed at random off Macintosh Garden. Unfortunately it didn't work for the "Treehouse" disk images that captaineos sent me earlier. According to hdiutil, those aren't floppy-sized disk images, and it won't convert them. It shows that they all have sizes around 2.6 MB, but each one is a slightly different size. I'm not sure if that's another hdiutil bug, or something strange about those particular disk images.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Thanks bmow! That's a lot easier!

But it doesn't work with MFS images, right?

It may not be entirely relevent to capitaineos but i would like to know for myself. I will be using your floppyEMU with my 128k exclusively...

 

[tanaquil]

That is super useful, thanks!

I would also be curious to know how it affects 400K MFS images.

 

[tanaquil]

Unfortunately it didn't work for the "Treehouse" disk images that captaineos sent me earlier. According to hdiutil, those aren't floppy-sized disk images, and it won't convert them. It shows that they all have sizes around 2.6 MB, but each one is a slightly different size. I'm not sure if that's another hdiutil bug, or something strange about those particular disk images.

DC 6 can create random-sized images from any folder (much as HFS Disk Maker can), so no doubt that's what those are.

With that type of image, since vmac can't read DC 6 images either, probably the best bet is to remount them in DC 6 and try to copy the files off onto proper floppy disk images.

(Just guessing - captaineos might have a better idea where those images came from.)

 

[techknight]

what about us windows users? 

 

[bigmessowires]

While I didn't try it, that hdiutil method should work fine for 400K MFS disks. It should also work for Apple II prodos disks, if you ever come across one that's in DC63 format.

I think you're right about those strangely-sized Treehouse disks. I used DiskCopy 6.3 and Basilisk II to examine them, and each is a ~2.6MB disk image containing 1.4 MB in files and 1MB of free space. You could copy just the contents to a new 1.4MB disk image like you said, which is probably the best solution. I can't think of any automatic conversion method that could handle a case like that, though.

what about us windows users? 

Use Basilisk II, like I did. As discussed above, there's no way to safely store or manipulate a DC63 image on a Windows filesystem unless you're using an emulator, because FAT and NTFS don't have resource forks.