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What are folks using/doing to back up their hard drives?? What I'd like to do is use my UltraSatan as a backup device. I know I could set up a TOS/PC configured card and copy the contents to the card.

 

Is there backup software that will back up the drive as an image so it can be used in an emulator??

 

If so, can that image be restored to a new HDD? (software???)

 

I am not at a lack of SD cards so my plan is to have 1 card per backed up HDD.

 

Thanks for any info!!!

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For creating image file of full hard disk, or SD card you can use : http://atari.8bitchip.info/drimus.php

 

Created image you can use in emulators Steem and Hatari - in Steem you need Pasti.dll . In Hatari select image file under ACSI hard disk emulation.

 

With same SW you can write (what you called restore) image content on same, or another hard disk, SD card (or Flash card of any type) .

 

I think that it is good idea to backup all your (likely old) hard drives. And to increase safety, you can keep image files on your PC - I guess that few GB space is not problem today.

 

Note: autoboot with UltraSatan after writing hard disk images on will work if your hard disks are connected on ACSI port - for instance Mega STE internal is such in fact.

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Such SW is possible to make. I don't know is such made for Atari ST. But there are few possible problems: partition sizes on Atari are max 512MB. So, you can not save larger image files than 510 MB (aprox). And all it will be pretty slow.

There is some backup SW which works in different way, but not free.

 

I think that best is - if you can not do it on PC, to just copy all files on SD cards (which must be partitioned, so prepared) .

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  • 4 years later...

What I dont understand is how if I have a 2gb drive on a 16gb microsd card do I set the size using the Size CHS??

 

So I am just doing a chunk of the card.. I calculate 2gb(or just under) into sectors /32 and /32 again, and it will give me the number of cylinders.

 

So as long as what I created ( The partitions) are inside that chunk.. I am good. Correct?

 

James

Edited by Bikerbob
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You don't use CHS with modern storage, hard disks, Flash cards. And it was used many years ago, max capacity was some 512MB - talking about complete capacity of hard disk.

If you want to save 2GB from card begin .... hmmm I explained it in e-mail. Now will explain here:

1 sector is 512 bytes, so 1/2 KB. Therefore 1 MB is 1024x2 sectors. 1GB is 1024x1024x2 sectors ....

There is other way, if want to save just 1 partition from card/drive, it is explained in usage. Don't forget to run program as administrator in Win 7 and higher .

 

Btw. you don't have 2GB drive on 16GB card. You have content of that 2GB drive on 16GB card :)

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You don't use CHS with modern storage, hard disks, Flash cards. And it was used many years ago, max capacity was some 512MB - talking about complete capacity of hard disk.

If you want to save 2GB from card begin .... hmmm I explained it in e-mail. Now will explain here:

1 sector is 512 bytes, so 1/2 KB. Therefore 1 MB is 1024x2 sectors. 1GB is 1024x1024x2 sectors ....

There is other way, if want to save just 1 partition from card/drive, it is explained in usage. Don't forget to run program as administrator in Win 7 and higher .

 

Btw. you don't have 2GB drive on 16GB card. You have content of that 2GB drive on 16GB card :)

 

Peter, I still have to use the CHS settings - even according to your own instructions to change the sectors.. OR you wrote it wrong. (I just tied it I can just modify the sector count) I know english is not your first language, but you also assume people know as much as you do when you write the instructions.

I have asked more than a few people to read your instructions and tell me what I am not getting.. Most people got frustrated and said the instructions were confusing.

In fact you don't actually tell anyone in your instructions that to back up a drive you click on "read from sel'd" did you know that?

 

This has been bugging me to the point where I actually wrote new instructions for the program if your interested. (which I will have to shorten quite a bit since I dont have to explain how to calculate the CHS)

 

I understand MOST of what you are telling me MOST of the time. YES I understand the content on the card.. but many people dont - dont get the difference between whats on the media and the size of the media itself.

 

Many users of this old hobby equipment just want storage to play their games, they are not tech people, they need software to make their antiques work. You literally design hardware and software; to expect a user of your stuff to be at your knowledge level is a bit unrealistic.

 

I appreciate many of your programs, I have purchased your HD driver, and I appreciate all your responses, I posted here because you were getting frustrated with me in email, and I looked to others to respond who might help.

 

James

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I guess that for some people is easier to criticize, find errors instead to follow really simple instructions. Why I think so ? Really, you needed weeks to find "(I just tied it I can just modify the sector count" . So excuse me, but this is just too annoying. You say that you appreciate, but all your responses just bring new critic and new questions, even about what is already explained.

So, yes, my instructions are not good, my English is not good - I would say only for people like you, who can't write some value in standard Windows dialog edit box .

OK, that was my reaction part, and you should really think about yourself a bit. Because it is really not so hard to use program. Actually, I did not get so many questions over 10 years as only from you in last 1 month,

 

This program is like all my utilities what I programmed for Atari ST and Windows, Linux: you will see not buttons, some 'wizards' to perform some concrete action like making image of attached Flash card, and then it will lead you step by step in that process. My approach is 'control panel' like - user needs to set certain fields and then press some action button. Surely, it requires some knowledge about computers, storage, but it is just faster and is more flexible.

 

Program is made with concrete purpose: to help retro computing, to help usage of in that time (2006 ...) relative new Flash cards. Extra support is added for 2 retros which I used and did some HW, SW for: Sinclair Spectrum and Atari ST serial. I made first IDE adapter for Atari ST in 1992 and used it first with some 40 MB Seagate disk. Little later made IDE adapter for Spectrum, what was much harder (because 8-bit bus) . I bought in those years diverse used hard disks of capacity between 60 and 160 MB. Some died after short usage, some are still working. And that was era of CHS hard disks. LBA came later. It is easy to look after those abbrevs, to look historical development of IDE disks. Not for all indeed - some like more to write new manual - please don't do that, results will be catastrophic and embarrassing for you. I mean this is absurdest thing I seen here, really. You lack totally basic knowledge.

So in short: early hard disks used CHS addressing - like floppy drives. To access some concrete sector on disk you need to give cylinder #, head # and sector # . That requires extra calculations in SW. Easier is linear addressing - for user, not for hard disk's controller. But as capacities grown, CHS became limited. I don't even remember at moment what was actual limit - 128 or 512 MB (not talking about BIOS limits of PC motherboards) with CHS. Or maybe 2GB .. totally forgot it :) So, they introduced LBA addressing, which was btw. used by SCSI already. First LBA was with 28-bit sector addressing, therefore max supported capacity was 128GB - pretty much for year 1995 for instance. About 2005 it became too little, so we have now LBA 48 too - you are free to calculate what max capacity it can address :-D

All in all, CHS is there only because historical reasons. And RAW images will not save any CHS info. Only HDF format supports it - what is not needed for modern storage. I even removed CHS support from my later hard disk drivers, because nobody uses those old hard disks now - if there are some working ones still (I have couple, but use only with Spectrum - once in 5 years) .. Btw. you will get absurd values in CHS for any modern storage with larger capacity (GBs) - way too big cylinder values. Probably should just write there lines in such case. And of course HDF format can not even hold so large cyl. values.

 

There is no explicit button/option for drive backup . My opinion is that if someone can not get what those few buttons are for, better don't use this program. Because it is very dangerous. You can kill your Windows very easily by mistake.

First problem is to recognize which detected drive in list at left is what.

To finish this long reply only one thing more:

There is section in help file, in WEB page "Atari ST GemDos, DOS16 & BigDOS file transfer & partition extract"

Quote from it: "Sunken button 'Partitions:' is for extracting image file of only selected partition. From drive or image file. In case of swapped L/H it will be saved in normal order, so may access partition with common tools. It also sets 'Sectors from start' and 'Sector count' to position of selected partition in main window (just close file selector without save). So advanced user may insert partiton with new content in disk or image file. It is dangerous operation, so do it only if know what are you doing."

And yet, you used CHS. Additionally, you wanted to save only first partition, some 2GB. Why would be easier to mess with CHS calculation instead using simple math and convert 2GB to sector count ?

I gave you answers to your questions, gave you some tips how to make it easier, and what I see is not "thank you", but some silly talk about confusing instructions. Yes, they are confusing for you, because your approach is totally wrong.

Try the way used by building: first the basement, then higher levels :)

Edited by ParanoidLittleMan
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If you have a Linux box, you can use Mtools to directly copy anything from

your SD card directly to your 'Nix box's hard drive (and to the SD card, for

that matter).

 

It's a dead handy way for me to copy stuff to 'n for on my STacy with it's

Ultrasatan.

 

Not sure if Mtools is available for Windows or not. Probably is. Oh, it is

command line, but it's not hard to learn.

 

HTHs.

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