Disk Repair Tools ST

[Cogweasel]

I have now transferred most of my old ST disks, with the aid of a Unicorn, about metric ton of stubbornness and a bit of patience on top of that. Hopefully I will be able to upload some missing stuff to the archives soon...

However I have couple of disks that wont open due to errors on the original disk. Are there any disk tools for the ST what would allow me to attempt repairing the disks? There's especially one that I would like to fix, one of my old disks containing my attempts at coding in GFA basic. Would be a lot of fun to reacquaint myself with my horrible attempts at coding I get the classic "data on the disk may be damaged..." when I try to open it. I presume there's something rotten with the FAT thingy or whatever its called, any way of fixing this, at least partially?

error.png

[ggn]

You could try something like Trans D-Bug express which essentially is a disk imaging program that can do infinite retries on disk error. Of course this will strain your drive and floppy but it can't hurt to try if you've exhausted all other options! (and this program was written because of this)

[Mug UK]

Or, if you have twin floppy drives, you could try using Knife ST's FAT repair option which will make a copy of the disk in A:, whilst attempting to fix any FAT table errors and a copy of the disk will appear in B:

(Caveat: I have never tried it with a single floppy drive and it's only worked on two out of the three occasions that I've tried to use it in anger)

[Cogweasel]

Thanks ggn and Mug UK! Will give Trans D-Bug express a try as a last attempt. I do have two floppy drives, but my external one is not working. No power, don't know if its the brick or the drive that's the problem, should really attempt to fix it. Would Knife ST work with an HD? I have a Unicorn USB that emulates an HD, so if the program could write an Image to the HD instead of to an actual floppy drive that might work...

[Mug UK]

Sorry Cogweasel, but I never used KnifeST much than the few times previously mentioned to attempt to recover a disk. No idea if it uses the HD for any of the functions.

[Desty]

I don't think Knife ST works with a hard drive, at least not the "Copy & Repair" option in the Format/Copy menu. You can set the source and destination drives both to "A", and it'll read as much as possible (based on available RAM, presumably) into memory before asking you to swap disks to write the copy.

[Cogweasel]

I will try the copy & repair to the same drive and cross my fingers! Thanks guys, will let you know how it works out!

[AtariFan]

There's a useful program called Disk Workshop II for repairing disks (in German). It is available on cover disk 6/90 of the German TOS Magazin.

[Cogweasel]

Thanks AtariFan! I do understand some German, so will hopefully be able to make sense of the program. Will give it a try.. in fact I am setting up right now . Cross your fingers guys!

There's a useful program called Disk Workshop II for repairing disks (in German). It is available on cover disk 6/90 of the German TOS Magazin.

[charles]

diskedit ,,its on the stformat magazine

or just try cleaning the disk drive heads
and
free up the disk so it can spin freeily within the blue plastic case(I presume!lol)allowing proper rpm s

[Cogweasel]

Thanks Charles! I included Diskedit in my attempts. But no luck so far, the disc seems unreadable. Both the boot sector and FAT seems screwed beyond repair. I have managed to make an PASTI image of it without any read errors, but of course the image isn't possible to open either.

Almost all my other disks have been readable( have a ton of them ), so the disk drive itself should be OK. The problematic disk itself seems to spin OK, even tried to clean it ... not sure what to do

[charles]

put in envelope and send to me , .. :)

[charles]

what about a pc with floppy drive and some new recovery software ?

[Cogweasel]

put in envelope and send to me , ..

A tempting offer , but I am afraid that if the disk isn't dead already, I am pretty sure the freighter will make sure is both physically and magnetically dead by the time it arrives in Canada

My mum has an old PC with a Floppy drive, I have transferred some of the disks successfully using that one. But this particular disk didn't work and to be honest there was a fair amount of problems using a PC floppy drive. I did try some different softwares with varying results as I remember it..

[Cogweasel]

what about a pc with floppy drive and some new recovery software ?

Hmm... question is; are there any PC programs that might be successful in repairing the disk?

[charles]

ever used
sttopc
on a pc with a floppy?
its a dos command program , and very good I might add

[Cogweasel]

ever used
sttopc
on a pc with a floppy?
its a dos command program , and very good I might add

Nope, don't believe I have... I am a bit allergic to command line software. Might be worth a try at this point though , do you have a link?

[charles]

I think its on this forum , I uploaded it years ago ...
bill godfrey sttopc on a st format coverdisk
takes one line of command to launch and a repetitive arrows and key command to control...
think its right arrow to open directories...down arrow to next file ,,instructions are included ,,,
u look and ill look , let me know if u find it before me

[charles]

STTOPC.rar

allright here you go

[Desty]

I was under the impression that USB floppy drives on a PC are not great at reading disks, particularly if there is a weird format. Did you try with ST Recover? It seems to have some tricks for reading partially desynchronised or damaged disks.

[DarkLord]

Have to admit, I never had much luck with my USB based floppy.

Honestly, it's super slow too... Like watching paint dry slow...

[Cogweasel]

I think its on this forum , I uploaded it years ago ...
bill godfrey sttopc on a st format coverdisk
takes one line of command to launch and a repetitive arrows and key command to control...
think its right arrow to open directories...down arrow to next file ,,instructions are included ,,,
u look and ill look , let me know if u find it before me

Thanks, feel a bit better now after realising its not just a command line tool!

I was under the impression that USB floppy drives on a PC are not great at reading disks, particularly if there is a weird format. Did you try with ST Recover? It seems to have some tricks for reading partially desynchronised or damaged disks.

My mums computer has actually got a genuine FDC, so no USB floppy drive needed thankfully. I have tried ST Recover, I think it failed reading the disk, but can't quite remember. Will probably have a peek at it again, since I don't have too many disks to mess with this time...

[Cogweasel]

STTOPC.rarallright here you go

Had a closer look at the text file, don't think this will work. It copies files it seems and since the FAT on the disk is probably not in good shape, I doubt this will work. Also seems to require two floppy drives... oh well, still worth a look, thanks for finding the program!

[charles]

nope just one floppy , it transfers to pc ,

[Cogweasel]

double post, sorry