Making back-up copies of original disks

[Gunstar]

I'm curious about this as I have never made a back-up yet of an original commercial release disk, but I need too. Specifically the game EPIC I pruchased off of E-bay recently. It works fine most of the time, but last night it stopped loading in the middle a couple of times before I got it to load right, and I'm afraid the original disks may be showing their age and slowly failing. I want original copies before they go bad, I don't want cracks/hacks as my back-up as you never know about bugs and whatnot with them. So, is there a program available that will copy the copy-protected originals?

 

And no, I'm not looking to make illegal copies. If I want them i'll download hacks/cracks. My Avatar is NOT a hint at advocation of piracy, I just thought it was a cool 8-bit Atari pic of a pirate, so I am using it as my avatar right now (notice much more than 4 colors in the graphics).

Edited October 9, 2006 by Gunstar

[+DarkLord]

I'm curious about this as I have never made a back-up yet of an original commercial release disk, but I need too. Specifically the game EPIC I pruchased off of E-bay recently. It works fine most of the time, but last night it stopped loading in the middle a couple of times before I got it to load right, and I'm afraid the original disks may be showing their age and slowly failing. I want original copies before they go bad, I don't want cracks/hacks as my back-up as you never know about bugs and whatnot with them. So, is there a program available that will copy the copy-protected originals?

 

And no, I'm not looking to make illegal copies. If I want them i'll download hacks/cracks. My Avatar is NOT a hint at piracy, I just thought it was a cool 8-bit Atari pic of a pirate, so I am using it as my avatar right now (notice much more than 4 colors in the graphics).

 

Okay, one of the best and reliable that I've found is "Blitz". Its a hack/mod that is basically a cable that sits between

your first floppy drive A, and floppy drive B. You put the original floppy disk in A, and a blank floppy disk in B, run the

software and it goes. My understanding is that it somehow actually bypasses the floppy drive controller in the ST to

make exact copies. I've had very good success with my games here. Not all, but a very large percentage. Sometimes,

if it doesn't work at first, a couple of attempts will finally produce a good working copy.

 

I believe you can still pick this up (modified cable and software) at places like B&C Computervision and Bravo Sierra

Computers.

[tjlazer]

Get the Synchro Express or Blitz cable as suggested, also you could use an Amiga with similar hardware copiers to copy ST disks!! (SuperCard AMI did it for me)

Edited October 9, 2006 by tjlazer

[jens]

There are several proggies available to do the trick either on an Atari or on a PC running Windows.

Look into the ST and Emulator sections of the Atari Legend Forum.