Ripping XF551 Discs To ATR

[EddyFree]

I have a question for the board.

 

I grew up with an Atari 800xl back in the Mid-to-Late 80s. I had two floppy drives during that time, one was a 1050 that I eventually installed "US Doublers" in, and the second was an XF551 DSDD...I ended up creating and accumulating quite a few floppy discs over that time on both drives.

 

Cutting to the chase, several years ago I came across my collection in the closet and had a "nostalgic" feeling...So I purchased an SIO2PC interface to convert those discs to ATRs. Unfortunately, my XF551 drive had died in storage so I hooked up my 1050 disk drive(US Doubled) to the device and was able to convert most discs to ATRs using an older desktop PC running the SIO2PC software under Win98 DOS.

 

Problem is that those discs that were written with my XF551 in Double-Sided-Double-Density mode back in the day were only able to be read half-way by the US Doubled 1050 during the disk imaging process. So, I only have half of the data I should have on those XF written discs.

 

My question is: I have a USB 2 to SATA/IDE cable and an old IDE PC 5.25 1.2mb drive which I believe is "double sided". 1) will the PC Floppy drive be able to read both sides of the disc (I think the XF and PC Drive both run at 300 rpm). 2) What software, if any, would read this in win32 (preferably Windows XP2 or less) and allow me to write an ATR as a 360k image?

 

 

[TGB1718]

Any software would have to 'double step' as the PC itself expects only 80 track disks.

 

I did a hardware fix for a 5 1/4 inch drive so it would double step when the PC (or in this case an ST) sent a single step.

 

I was trying to use a 5 1/4 on my ST to read 1050 disks, didn't have much success, but that was a long time ago and I

didn't have the time to resolve the issue, but the stepper did work.

[manterola]

You may try to fix your xf551. If you are lucky a head cleaning and/or a check and re soldering of the SIO connectors might fix it. The SIO connectivity is the most common source of problems. 

Which are the symptoms? 

[EddyFree]

Ooops, I pulled out the old PC 1.2mb drive today and it looks like it has a 34-pin Edge Connector on it, not IDE as I erroneously posted (yes, I'm not a big "hardware" person as you can tell). I'm assuming that with the correct cable, it should connect to the floppy disk port on my motherboard and I should be able to set up the BIOS to recognize it.

 

But that still leaves my question. Will the PC drive be able to read and image my old XF551 360k DSDD disks since the drive architecture is similar?

 

Actually, I was quite surprised that my 1050 was able to read the first side of the XF551 disks since it operates at 288 rpm I think and the XF is 300 rpm. Unfortunately, the back side of the disks are written in "reverse" order so flipping them over is useless. If I'd have only known back then I'd have only used single sided when formatting.

 

I also had a nice collection of Atari ST disks(3.5 inch) and most were really easy to image with the PC 3.5 inch drives although they had a much higher error rate than the 8Bit disks. Unfortunately, I used stupid "unconventional" formatting methods on the Atari ST(such as "twister") to get a few extra Kilobytes per disk back then on several disks and the PC drives didn't like those disks. Again, if I'd have only known.

 

And as for my second question, if the PC Floppy Drive does read them, what Win32 software would be best to write them as ATRs? Or perhaps WinImage may be able to write them as 360k .img files and I can write a program to convert the dumps to ATR myself?

 

[EddyFree]

8 hours ago, manterola said:

You may try to fix your xf551. If you are lucky a head cleaning and/or a check and re soldering of the SIO connectors might fix it. The SIO connectivity is the most common source of problems. 

Which are the symptoms?  

 

Unfortunately, after a move the poor thing was stored outside in a shed(long story, don't ask). All media was stored inside in a closet. After a couple of years I guess the weather/moisture and all got to it. I opened it up and several of the Printed Circuit Board traces are heavily pitted. Funny thing is the US Doubled 1050 was stored in the same storage tote and works like a charm!(AND it's belt-driven too!). It's been several years but if I recall correctly it turns "ON" but doesn't do anything, not even head movement. I've got it stashed in the closet somewhere now, I may have to dig it out and reevaluate it but I know it's not operational. That's why I'm trying to see if this 5.25 PC Floppy may be able to read those disks 100%.

 

[JR>]

Teledisk or Anadisk might work.  It's pretty hit or miss.  There are several versions of teledisk. Try them all, the latest is not always the best for any given hardware configuration.

[EddyFree]

12 hours ago, TGB1718 said:

Any software would have to 'double step' as the PC itself expects only 80 track disks.

 

 

The disks I'm talking about are XF551 Double Sided Double Density. They should be 80 tracks.

 

 

[JR>]

XF551 is a 40 track drive (per side).

[_The Doctor__]

I'd fix the xf and use it, or you could also use a black box with floppy board, perhaps a karin maxi, even a single sided double density drive, sector copying both side one at a time.... then stitching them together... another option is SCP or KryoFLux...

of course you could send them to a person to simply do it for you that has any of the mentioned solutions available to them.....

[+Nezgar]

4 hours ago, EddyFree said:

I've got it stashed in the closet somewhere now, I may have to dig it out and reevaluate it but I know it's not operational. That's why I'm trying to see if this 5.25 PC Floppy may be able to read those disks 100%.

I would seriously consider repairing the XF551... You would raise your eyebrows at what they fetch on eBay...  Even if it's not working

 

The XF551 doesn't normally do much when powered on - a quick head jump is all I notice. Maybe just verify that the head is free to move (it may have seized from storage). If you can verify that at least the controller board is functioning, you may be able to get a usable configuration by replacing just the mech. See if with the drive on and set to drive 1, if a connected Atari computer does NOT automatically drop to the BASIC "READY" prompt - but instead exhibits "BOOT ERROR"s with delay between each. Door open or closed should not matter.

 

Unfortunately, other "popular" double sided disk controllers for the Atari 8-bits used different 'double sided' layouts, making interoperability of double-sided disks problematic. For example, the XF551 reads side 0 from track 1 to 40 then side 1 from track 40 to track 1 . Percom drives access the 2nd side from track 1 to track 40. The ATR8000 would access side 0 then 1 on the same track, then repeat side 0,1 for the next track, etc.

 

Maybe your PC 5.25 1.2mb will work in in the XF551, but I think an physical adapter is required. (Maybe that's just for 3.5" drives?)

 

As for PC based archival solutions, take a look at these. Both of them connect a 3.5" of 5.25" drive to an intelligent USB based disk controller you can use in modern OS like Windows that reads the disks at the flux level for archival, from which you can then convert to usable formats with various tools.

• Kryoflux https://www.kryoflux.com/?page=kf_features
• SuperCard Pro https://www.cbmstuff.com/proddetail.php?prod=SCP

Lastly, how many double-sided disks are you talking? It's possible someone here with a working XF551 would be willing to image them for you.

[BillC]

5 hours ago, EddyFree said:

Ooops, I pulled out the old PC 1.2mb drive today and it looks like it has a 34-pin Edge Connector on it, not IDE as I erroneously posted (yes, I'm not a big "hardware" person as you can tell). I'm assuming that with the correct cable, it should connect to the floppy disk port on my motherboard and I should be able to set up the BIOS to recognize it.

 

But that still leaves my question. Will the PC drive be able to read and image my old XF551 360k DSDD disks since the drive architecture is similar?

 

Actually, I was quite surprised that my 1050 was able to read the first side of the XF551 disks since it operates at 288 rpm I think and the XF is 300 rpm. Unfortunately, the back side of the disks are written in "reverse" order so flipping them over is useless. If I'd have only known back then I'd have only used single sided when formatting.

 

I also had a nice collection of Atari ST disks(3.5 inch) and most were really easy to image with the PC 3.5 inch drives although they had a much higher error rate than the 8Bit disks. Unfortunately, I used stupid "unconventional" formatting methods on the Atari ST(such as "twister") to get a few extra Kilobytes per disk back then on several disks and the PC drives didn't like those disks. Again, if I'd have only known.

 

And as for my second question, if the PC Floppy Drive does read them, what Win32 software would be best to write them as ATRs? Or perhaps WinImage may be able to write them as 360k .img files and I can write a program to convert the dumps to ATR myself?

 

While the XF551 mechanism rotates at 300RPM, Atari overclocked the read/write speed by 4% to compensate. This allows the DATA to be read/written in the same space as a 1050 at 288RPM.

[a8isa1]

Sounds like you have a 5.25" drive and PC suitable to use it.  Also sounds like you have some/all double density disks.

 

If you have the ability to install MS DOS and Win 9x then give Hias Reichl's WRITEATR a try.  Back about 15 years ago I ported all my DD disks from an ATR8000 to ATRs using a 5.25" HD disk drive.  Takes about 50 seconds each (for single sided disks), IIRC.  I might have that wrong.  Call it a minute. It's fast. 

 

I'm pretty sure WRITEATR works with XF551 disk.   I can't speak for US doubled drive's disks.

 

Hopefully Hias, himself, will chime in

 

Anyway, if the old PC is at hand, WRITEATR is worth a quick try.

 

 

-SteveS

[EddyFree]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 12:11 AM, _The Doctor__ said:

even a single sided double density drive, sector copying both side one at a time.... then stitching them together...

If my USDoubled 1050 was able to read the second side, I would have done this. However, it can't read side two because that side is written "backwards" by the xf551 in "double-sided" mode.

 

[EddyFree]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 12:51 AM, Nezgar said:

all the stuff below in quotes:

"I would seriously consider repairing the XF551..."

 

I'll try digging it out and have another look at it if the PC Drive is found unable to read them.

 

"For example, the XF551 reads side 0 from track 1 to 40 then side 1 from track 40 to track 1 . Percom drives access the 2nd side from track 1 to track 40."

 

Right. Like the ST alternates reads from side one and two per track on 3.5 floppies.

 

"Maybe your PC 5.25 1.2mb will work in in the XF551, but I think an physical adapter is required."

 

No, I'm simply wondering if I can read the disks that the XF551 created in a PC 1.2mb drive operating in "360k" mode on the PC itself.

 

"As for PC based archival solutions, take a look at these. Both of them connect a 3.5" of 5.25" drive to an intelligent USB based disk controller you can use in modern OS like Windows that reads the disks at the flux level for archival, from which you can then convert to usable formats with various tools."

 

Thanks. Definitely an option, but each of those cards are around $100 and I wouldn't have much use for them afterwards. I've already got 1/2 the data off the disks. I'd have to weight whether the contents of the missing data would be worth the costs of recovery. Luckily, all the XFDSDD disks were formatted in SpartaDos, so the MAIN directory entries are at the beginning of the disk so I know which files were on side 2 even though the file's actual data isn't in the images.

 

"Lastly, how many double-sided disks are you talking? It's possible someone here with a working XF551 would be willing to image them for you."

 

Only about 75-85, not enough to go through all that trouble considering half of each disc was imaged.

 

 

[EddyFree]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 6:27 PM, a8isa1 said:

 

If you have the ability to install MS DOS and Win 9x then give Hias Reichl's WRITEATR a try.  Back about 15 years ago I ported all my DD disks from an ATR8000 to ATRs using a 5.25" HD disk drive.  Takes about 50 seconds each (for single sided disks), IIRC.  I might have that wrong.  Call it a minute. It's fast.  

 

 

This is my question. If your PC 5.25 HD drive read your Atari DD Disks, maybe mine will read my XF551 second sides too. I have an old PC with Win98 that sports a massive 2GB Hard Drive in the closet that I can dig out. I'll try hooking the 1.2mb Floppy up on that and see what happens...

 

 

[BillC]

6 hours ago, EddyFree said:

No, I'm simply wondering if I can read the disks that the XF551 created in a PC 1.2mb drive operating in "360k" mode on the PC itself.

If the 1.2MB PC drive doesn't work you could try connecting the XF551 mechanism to the PC, the drive select on the mechanism would have to be changed from DS0 to DS1 to be compatible with the PC. This could also be a way of testing if the XF551 mechanism is operational, this requires an older PC that allows selecting a 360K DSDD mechanism in the BIOS.

Edited October 17, 2019 by BillC

[Mathy]

Hello Eddy, guys

 

21 hours ago, EddyFree said:

If my USDoubled 1050 was able to read the second side, I would have done this. However, it can't read side two because that side is written "backwards" by the xf551 in "double-sided" mode.

 

 

To get the 1050 (or any other single sided drive) to read side two, you'd have to make the drive spin the other way around.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

Edited October 17, 2019 by Mathy

[_The Doctor__]

correct, backwards revolutions, and tracks in reverse. just like any other dsdd drive when looking at it from a flipped perspective. Unless the disks were double density but flipped disks. Which are double sided... as many people had cajoled to keep compatibility... I know a number of people who formatted double density on both single sides and defeated the write protect notch on their XF's to use the disks formatted by the other drives...

of course their were the flippy disk punchers some people used and the index faker etc...

Edited October 17, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[+CharlieChaplin]

WriteATR even has an option to read XF disks formatted with 360k or 720k, the software will do this on a DOS or W95/W98 PC. Alas, the hardware (your 5,25" PC drive) will not always read or write or format A8 disks.

 

https://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/#writeatr

 

With a friend I tested 12-15 PC drives (5,25", 360k and 1.2MB drives) with all kinds of results, some of them could read A8 disks but not write or format, some of them could write but not read or format, some of them would format and write but refused to read, you name it. The only drive that did everything read + write + format was a TEAC drive we had available twice, the FD 55 GFR which is actually a HD/1.2MB floppy drive. It could read+write+format 180k, 360k and 720k A8 disks and it could also format+write 130k (but not read!), but like most PC floppy drives it refused to do anything with 90k (FM) disks...

 

[+Nezgar]

I wonder if it could be as easy as reversing the 12V polarity to the motor in a DD capable 1050?

 

Edit: even if it did work, I guess you would only get the first 128 bytes of 256 from sectors 721-723...

 

Edit 2 - it would be the first three sectors of track 79 that would be affected lol... and every track would be inverse sequence.. track 0 would be 79, track 39 would be 40, etc. Erg that would be a lot of post sector swapping even if you could get a side 2 sector copy this way.

[_The Doctor__]

perhaps just the motor drive lines. A person might even attempt a figure 8 twist guided belt. Consider also Saved as a raw stream (scp/kryo) then all manor of manipulation could be done...

Edited October 17, 2019 by _The Doctor__