Software backup/Imaging suggestions?

[Cosmo]

Posted this on FB, but not everybody's there so here..
 
Any software suggestions for imaging / reading Macintosh 3.5" disks (400k, 800k and 1.4Mb) more deeply than just using i.e. Diskcopy? 
 
Have hundreds of disks to image/read and would like some more "bit-level" software to get it done.
 
Yes, these are private data, and mostly not commercial software, but disks might have read-errors or somekind.
 
Not going Kryoflux level of rescue however on this ....yet.

 

[olePigeon]

I use DiskCopy 4.2 for creating all my floppy disk images.  I've been told that it stores additional information about a disk and is important to people for some reason.  So that's what I use.  Apparently you have to use the real DiskCopy 4.2 itself, not DiskCopy 6 creating DiskCopy 4.2 images.

 

[lameboyadvance]

AFAIK 400k/800k disks store extra data on their disks (tags?). This data is not copied by the later versions of Disk Copy, and since some old stuff used this extra storage part of the disk is lost when you copy it with a later version.

For 1.44MB disks either should be fine for copying.

 

[olePigeon]

Ah, thanks for the clarification.  I use DiskCopy 6.3 for CDs, obviously.

 

[Cosmo]

Anyone using Supercard Pro here?

http://www.cbmstuff.com/proddetail.php?prod=SCP

Just obtained Kryoflux but it seems not to be idea for Macintosh 400k/800k or Apple ][ floppies.

Anyone using it here?

 

[bigmessowires]

A sector on a Macintosh 400K/800K floppy contains 512 bytes of data and a few bytes of tags - either 12 or 20 bytes, I can't remember at the moment. 99.99% of Macintosh software ignores the tags. In fact, I've never seen any Mac program that uses the tag info. Tags are basically a hold-over from the Lisa. Yeah, 1.44 MB floppies don't store tags at all. Diskcopy 4.2 copies the tag info. Later versions of Diskcopy don't.

There's a disk copy program called Copy II Mac that *might* do something closer to bit-level copying, but I'm not sure. It may just duplicate what Diskcopy 4.2 does. Any program that does bit-level floppy access would have to bypass the Sony driver in the Mac's ROM, and control the IWM chip directly, which is not a small task. 

Do you know for sure that the disks you need to copy are using a form of disk-level copy protection? Like non-standard sector headers or sector sizes? It not, then I don't think there's a need for anything other than Diskcopy 4.2. If you're concerned about read errors, then you could create multiple images from each floppy, and diff them to verify they're identical.

 

[olePigeon]

According to the interwebs, Copy II Mac does bit-level copying.  It will even copy disks that have bad sectors.

To save as a disk image, you have to use Copy II Hard Disk.  I'm gonna snag a copy and try it out.  I have a couple games that didn't want to copy using Disk Copy 4.2 (would get a read error at the end), but I could copy them manually.  I wonder if they had copy protection.

 

[olePigeon]

Some further Googling reveled there's another app called FEdit.  It's another bit level copy program for Macintosh.  This one was shareware, and a popular alternative to Copy II Mac.  However, it doesn't appear to save disk images.

Would be really handy for cracking copy protection, though.

 

[bigmessowires]

I've used FEdit before. Unless I've overlooked something, it's not a disk copy program, although it might be useful in reverse-engineering disk-based copy-protection schemes. It's basically just a hex editor - or so I thought anyway. I'll have to take another look.

 

[olePigeon]

I think you're right.

 

[Cosmo]

http://www.mrpijey.net/temp/drive_comparison.jpg 

Also the brand and model does seem to matter greatly. I've used Panasonic so far, but have one ALPS and another one i can't remember, possibly NEC, in stock.

I'll try to see if those give different results.

 

[bigmessowires]

Cool! Your image link seems to be broken - correct link is http://www.mrpijey.net/temp/drive_comparison.jpg

If these are 400K single-sided disks, what are the side 1 test results from your chart?

 

[Cosmo]

Cool! Your image link seems to be broken - correct link is http://www.mrpijey.net/temp/drive_comparison.jpg

If these are 400K single-sided disks, what are the side 1 test results from your chart?

Those were not my tests however, there's good article about Macintosh floppies and Kryoflux at ; http://goughlui.com/2013/04/21/project-kryoflux-part-3-recovery-in-practise/

I am trying to find more 3.5" drives as two of what i got recently do not work at all..