Reading an Atari ST disk on windows XP

[cx2k]

This may have been covered before but is there a SIMPLE utility that will allow me to read Atari ST format disks on my Windows XP machine?

 

Beyond that, can I then copy them by dragging them to another drive on my XP system?

 

Thanks,

John

[ppera]

This may have been covered before but is there a SIMPLE utility that will allow me to read Atari ST format disks on my Windows XP machine?

 

Beyond that, can I then copy them by dragging them to another drive on my XP system?

 

Thanks,

John

 

Floppy image:

 

http://www.ppest.org/atari/floimgd.php

 

You can make copies of floppies with program, but not with dragging. And program for now works only with drive A (not much people has 2 floppies). Make image and change floppy , then write image file to it. If I understood what you mean. Otherwise, you can copy image files as you wish with Win Explorer.

[+Mitch]

If you just want to read the disk and copy the contents to your hard drive then you should be able to copy the files like any other PC based floppy. If you are trying to make a disk image then ppera's info should help with that.

 

Mitch

[ijor]

If you just want to read the disk and copy the contents to your hard drive then you should be able to copy the files like any other PC based floppy.

 

No, this depends on the disk. Many (most) ST disks are unreadable by XP without using a custom tool like floimg and Simon's kernel driver.

[cx2k]

Exactly. When I try to read it, it tells me that the disk is unformatted and asks me if I would like to format it.

 

John

[+Mitch]

If you just want to read the disk and copy the contents to your hard drive then you should be able to copy the files like any other PC based floppy.

 

No, this depends on the disk. Many (most) ST disks are unreadable by XP without using a custom tool like floimg and Simon's kernel driver.

 

I was assuming John was refering to data disks (containing stuff like documents) not retail program disks. If he's referring to program disks then I would agree with you.

[ijor]

I was assuming John was refering to data disks (containing stuff like documents) not retail program disks.

 

Even with user made disk you might still have the same problem.

 

XP can't read single sided disks. It can't read disks formatted with TOS 1.0. It can't read disks with 10 sector per track, disks with more than 80 tracks, etc, etc.

 

And some user disks can't be read at the PC at all, not even with floimg, unless you use custom hardware like the Catweasel.

[+Mitch]

Exactly. When I try to read it, it tells me that the disk is unformatted and asks me if I would like to format it.

 

John

 

Whoops, you must have posted while I was typing.

 

If you are get the "unformatted disk" error it's may be because the disk is getting old and XP is very picky about reading floppies. For those I usually just throw it in my old Win98 PC and copy it from there.

You can use the previous mentioned utilities to bypass XP's floppy driver as well.

 

Mitch

[cx2k]

Actually Mitch, I am referring to data disks. Years ago, I had the ST set up and was able to transfer files back and forth using Win 98 and a PC formatted disk. Right now, I couldn't even tell you where my ST is with all the junk in my basement. I found some licensing agreement disks from Atari that I wanted to copy over to look at but Win XP refuses to see them.

 

John

[ijor]

Years ago, I had the ST set up and was able to transfer files back and forth using Win 98 and a PC formatted disk.

 

If the disk was previously formatted on the PC (under DOS or Windows), then you shouldn't have any problems under XP. So if you still get errors with those disks, then the disk(s) might be damaged.

 

But for many (most) disks formatted on the ST, you need custom software.

[+Mitch]

Actually Mitch, I am referring to data disks. Years ago, I had the ST set up and was able to transfer files back and forth using Win 98 and a PC formatted disk. Right now, I couldn't even tell you where my ST is with all the junk in my basement. I found some licensing agreement disks from Atari that I wanted to copy over to look at but Win XP refuses to see them.

 

John

 

Sounds like it's the "XP being picky about old disks problem", I have that problem with some floppies that were created under XP a couple years ago.

 

Mitch

[tjlazer]

The disk is probably formatted using TOS 1.0 or is an extended disk (larger than 720k)

[+Guitarman]

The most reliable is going to be a DS/DD (720K) or above formatted under TOS 1.4 or above. TOS 1.2 disks are readable but writing to them are a little flakey and give strange results when read in the ST (phantom files & folders, etc...). 1.0 is not compatable.

[Curt Vendel]

Not entirely so...

 

 

Some of the newer AMI and Award BIOS' don't even support anything but 1.44mb diskettes anymore and XP doesn't like 720K disks period.

 

There is a new homebrew ST disk reading program with a driver mod to allow XP to read 720K disks, but I've found it to be buggy and cause XP to crash - have a try at it, I finally got it working, just had to mess a little with the registry-

 

http://www.ppest.org/atari/floimgd.php

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

 

Years ago, I had the ST set up and was able to transfer files back and forth using Win 98 and a PC formatted disk.

 

If the disk was previously formatted on the PC (under DOS or Windows), then you shouldn't have any problems under XP. So if you still get errors with those disks, then the disk(s) might be damaged.

 

But for many (most) disks formatted on the ST, you need custom software.

[ijor]

Not entirely so...

Some of the newer AMI and Award BIOS' don't even support anything but 1.44mb diskettes anymore and XP doesn't like 720K disks period.

 

I beg to differ Curt, but that is not correct.

 

The BIOS is not relevant at all in modern Windows. Windows doesn't use BIOS in any way whatsoever for accessing floppies. It has its own driver that goes to the hardware directly.

 

So lack of BIOS support would be relevant only for DOS (and possibly Win 9X).

 

And XP does "like" 720K disks, it can even format 720K at the command prompt. What it doesn't "like" is 800K (or more) disks.

 

Pera's tool and Simon's kernel driver are precisely for reading those formats (such as 800k, or 360k) that Window doesn't support.

Edited February 25, 2007 by ijor

[Curt Vendel]

I stand corrected :-)

 

 

 

Curt

 

Not entirely so...

Some of the newer AMI and Award BIOS' don't even support anything but 1.44mb diskettes anymore and XP doesn't like 720K disks period.

 

I beg to differ Curt, but that is not correct.

 

The BIOS is not relevant at all in modern Windows. Windows doesn't use BIOS in any way whatsoever for accessing floppies. It has its own driver that goes to the hardware directly.

 

So lack of BIOS support would be relevant only for DOS (and possibly Win 9X).

 

And XP does "like" 720K disks, it can even format 720K at the command prompt. What it doesn't "like" is 800K (or more) disks.

 

Pera's tool and Simon's kernel driver are precisely for reading those formats (such as 800k, or 360k) that Window doesn't support.

[atarian1]

You might want to try OmniFlop which claims to read the strange Atari ST variant disks (plus a whole bunch of other vintage equipment formats. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it's worth a try.

[ppera]

Not entirely so...

Some of the newer AMI and Award BIOS' don't even support anything but 1.44mb diskettes anymore and XP doesn't like 720K disks period.

There is a new homebrew ST disk reading program with a driver mod to allow XP to read 720K disks, but I've found it to be buggy and cause XP to crash - have a try at it, I finally got it working, just had to mess a little with the registry-

http://www.ppest.org/atari/floimgd.php

 

As ijor said, XP works not via BIOS, so it is irrelevant how BIOS handles floppies.

 

You are first who I see to talk about bugs in floimg.

Maybe your XP is little problematic. It should work without any registry corrections. Of course there is possibility that problem is in fdrawcmd-WinXP relation. Maybe you installed prior some other floppy driver?

Edited February 25, 2007 by ppera

[Curt Vendel]

True -

 

I was just referring overall to the state of PC's these days and that even down to the BIOS levels, HW makers are even abandoning older formats.

 

XP, as 2000 and NT before it separate themselves from directly interacting with much of the HW in PC's through the Hardware Abstraction Layer which has lead in many ways to having such OS' be more stable, but causing headaches when we've needed to actually talk directly to the hardware on occassion.

 

For instance, I just recently built out a parallel to LED converter board to allow the Daphne laserdisc emulator and Dragon's Lair to drive the original LED scoreboard. This was done on an embedded version of XP, but required DirectIO, a program that allows the application to directly communicate with the LPT1 port at an IRQ and Port MEM level.

 

 

 

Curt

 

Not entirely so...

Some of the newer AMI and Award BIOS' don't even support anything but 1.44mb diskettes anymore and XP doesn't like 720K disks period.

There is a new homebrew ST disk reading program with a driver mod to allow XP to read 720K disks, but I've found it to be buggy and cause XP to crash - have a try at it, I finally got it working, just had to mess a little with the registry-

http://www.ppest.org/atari/floimgd.php

 

As ijor said, XP works not via BIOS, so it is irrelevant how BIOS handles floppies.

 

You are first who I see to talk about bugs in floimg.

Maybe your XP is little problematic. It should work without any registry corrections. Of course there is possibility that problem is in fdrawcmd-WinXP relation. Maybe you installed prior some other floppy driver?

[ppera]

...

XP, as 2000 and NT before it separate themselves from directly interacting with much of the HW in PC's through the Hardware Abstraction Layer which has lead in many ways to having such OS' be more stable, but causing headaches when we've needed to actually talk directly to the hardware on occassion.

For instance, I just recently built out a parallel to LED converter board to allow the Daphne laserdisc emulator and Dragon's Lair to drive the original LED scoreboard. This was done on an embedded version of XP, but required DirectIO, a program that allows the application to directly communicate with the LPT1 port at an IRQ and Port MEM level.

 

 

It is known that Windowses disallow direct HW, port accesses. It has good reasons.

 

But problems with floppies are different nature. It would harm nothing Win if you could read floppy at low level, actually at track reading level, by adressing sectors with Cylinder, Head, Sector number. But it is not possible - you can using only linear access, via logical sector #. It automatically makes impossible to correct read floppies with different sector counts in tracks. But it is even worse. You can not correct read any floppy with 10 sector/track for instance. Win XP will read it as 9 sec/track floppy - simple will skip every sector #10 on tracks. It is very confusing, and no wonder that people have so much wrong explanations.

I don't know what is the reason for so made floppy driver - did it programmed worst programmer in M$, or it was intentional made so - to allow reading of just DOS compatible floppies.

 

In any case, we can only expect that in Vista it will be just worse

[Albert]

I just cleaned up this thread--ggn, stay out of this thread, if you have an issue, start a new thread or take it to PM.

 

..Al

[tjlazer]

LOL