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Best disk utility for full disk verify and format?


ianoid

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I need a disk image compatible with my Uno cart that will allow me to verify Atari 800 disks, copy disks, and format disks. Basically I need to create a few known good single density disks for an archival project I am involved in.

 

Another question: will running a utility off the UnoCart prevent me from accessing my real disk drive?

 

Thanks for any help you can provide. 

 

 

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From what I know, UNO Cart emulates D1: , you should still be able to access D2: via SIO as normal, you would need to boot to

a DOS 2.5 ATR file, then you have the ability to use DOS to copy files/format disks/copy disks using DOS 2.5 menu as your only

accessing single density disks.

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Dangit, I forgot that Atari DOS is menu driven. I'll explore that. I keep thinking of SpartaDOS and MyDOS with their command line interfaces as the real DOS for Atari. 

 

Although I'd love to find a program to verify disks as well, not just the files, but to check for any errors even in unused sectors. It has become ever more important as magnetic media has aged. 

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Maybe a simple full disk sector copier like disk wizard II or MyCopyR would be best.

 

They read "ALL" sectors of a disk, and write all non-empty sectors. Should be able to select D2: for source and destination if D1: is mapped to a virtual disk.

 

Disk wizard II is good because when reading bad sectors with CRC errors, it will keep the data intact that could be read, so only a few bytes may be bad. You can note the sectors for review, or retries may recover as well.

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Just a thought... I see you have quite a few posts, so it's likely you are a seasoned user. (Of course, most of your posts could be from 2600 or another system.)  But have you thought of writing your own utility as a project?  Not too hard a project, and lots of "bits and pieces" laying around to help.  Then again, writing programs is work that not everyone enjoys.

-Larry

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On a stock drive, one formatter is no better than another (for the most part).

The drive itself takes the command then formats and returns a bad sector list (which most Doses just ignore, don't process and simply throw an error up for ?)

 

Alternative formatting methodologies could be:

- format only without establishing a filing system (may as well if you're going to do a full sector copy of another disk)

- intelligent format that blocks out the returned bad sectors so they're not used (can anything in existence do that) ?

- initilize only, just rewrite the boot sectors and create a blank FAT/VTOC.

 

"Verify" - we have write with verify that even on dodgy drives in the day we usually just turned off.  There's not really a verify function in Dos other than trying to read a file.

To verify a disk, just reading all the sectors should be sufficient.  The drive at the low level has CRCs on the data, at the computer level checksums are calculated and sent (though I don't think they're stored on the disk at all?)

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I would love to program something, but it's not a project I am up to take on right now. I am non-technical, so I'd need to learn to code. That, on top of learning the modern nuances of coding environments, which are a major hurdle for those of us whose only programming experience is command line BASIC. I need disk verification for another project I'm involved in related to disk imaging and archival. I need known good disks to confirm imaging reads. 

 

By verify, I don't mean compare two disks, but rather to ensure the every nibble/byte on the disk is readable, that the disk surface has no errors. Content doesn't matter so much as certain error free readability. 

 

Thanks!

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You may try Diskcopy from (german) TurboDOS XL/XE - if it works from UNO cart. Since I do not own a UNO cart, I am unable to test if it works there...

 

This is a standard sectorcopy program for 90k, 130k, 180k and 360k. Version 1 works without any speeders (you may use HiasSoft XL-Hi-Patch OS up to Pokey divisor 0), while version 2 works with Happy, Speedy, XF551 and Turbo1050 speeders (limited to Pokey divisor 5 or 6 I think).

 

You can use diskcopy to copy whole disks, it will format the destination disk (or image) automatically. It is also possible to convert 90k disks into 130k disks or vice-versa (e.g. if sectors 721-1040 are empty). And the two copy programs will verify written sectors, the older version 1 will even verify read sectors. To make changes in the menu, press the ESC key, then cursor-keys up+down to choose an entry and Return key to change it to on or off (e.g. change "Quit on empty sector" to "off" for all non DOS 2/DOS 2.5 disks), press ESC again to leave the menu and simply press Return to start copying. When copying (and verifying) is done you can reboot by holding the Select key and then pressing Reset.

 

Diskcopy.zip

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On 6/9/2020 at 9:08 AM, ianoid said:

I need a disk image compatible with my Uno cart that will allow me to verify Atari 800 disks, copy disks, and format disks. Basically I need to create a few known good single density disks for an archival project I am involved in.

 

Another question: will running a utility off the UnoCart prevent me from accessing my real disk drive?

 

Thanks for any help you can provide. 

 

 

Look no further: 

 

CopyMate XE 3.8

 

Incognito: COPMAT38 (Incognito).XEX

Ultimate/1MB:COPMAT38 (Original).XEX

 

It is auto source/target scan, full auto-density, multi-drive, extended-RAM, multi-retry, graphical progress report, and compatible with PBI-BIOS acceleration.

 

Only thing that it does not do is format with specific sector-interleaves... But that's about it.

Edited by Faicuai
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This is fantastic.  Thanks for the recommendations and the files, to save the unusual amount of trouble it takes to find specific utilities. Games are easy, but few websites archive the utilities. 

 

I will try these options and report back!

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1 hour ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Please note that Copymate XE V3.8 requires a minimum of 128k RAM - it will not work with 48k or 64k RAM, therefore it supports up to 320k RAM, which is not much when you copy 720k diskettes with it, but enough for 90k/130k/180k disks...

 

 

In the event that XE-ram is not available (like 130XE or better), the closest-in-kind that would serve as fall-back option is MyCoyR! 2.1:

 

Incognito:Mycopyr! 2.1 (incognito).com

XL/XE:Mycopyr! 2.1 (original).com

 

It will run on the 800 (or Colleen mode on Incognito), seems taking advantage of 52K, it WILL format disks with US (UltraSpeed) sector interleave, will show graphical progress (and auto-swap disks if two are active), BUT... it will only support TWO drives, will NOT be compatible with PBI-BIOS I/O, and will read directly from SIO-attached devices only.

 

These two are my go-to .ATR / Floppy / Media copy and formatting tools of choice, for pretty much all the needs I have found along the way.

 

YMMV, of course.

 

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