SHP Forums

So I recently got a USB 3.5" to use from a friend - and I want to copy my 3.5" disks to my external drive.

Like in a folder H:\SIERRA then like SQ1DSK1, SQ1DSK2, etc.

Would it, later work (because some of the games are different versions than what I have installed from CD collections) -

To do something like:

Mount C: H:\SIERRA
Mount A: H:\SIERRA\SQ1DKS1
Then also Mount B: H:\SIERRA\SQ1DSK2
Then also Mount D: H:\SIERRA\SQ1DSK3
Then also Mount E: H:\SIERRA\SQ1DSK4

Then run the install from say A:
Tell it to install on the C: drive (which would be actually H:\SIERRA\)...

And then when it asks to insert the disk into the drive, can I specify Drive B: for Disk 2, Drive D: for Disk 3, etc?

Or is there an easier way, once they're all copied to an external drive to be able to install these?

Generally the original installers will only look to the drive that you launch the installer from. You can mount images of the floppies as your a: drive, but the current DOSBox does not allow you to cycle through images for the floppy the way you can with the CD. The SVN might, but I have not tried. If Qbix sees this he can say. One thing you can do is to mount a folder as your A: drive with the "-t floppy" switch (just in case the installer insists on running from the floppy or changes mode if it run from a floppy or a hard drive, i.e. some of the Sierra installers that both install the game to the hard drive and configure that game or on configure the game.)

If there are no different files with the same name between disks you may be able simply copy the files from all disks into your mounted A: drive. Many installers will look for identifiers to know what disk is in the drive. This may be a file or the disk label. Not much that you can do if the installer is reading the label, but if you have to swap files you can hit CTRL+F4 to refresh the drive cache for DOSBox to see it.

If there are file conflicts between disks (many of the Sierra VGA games split the large resource archive (RESOURCE.000) between disks. These have to be concatenated back into one large file. Some games named these parts uniquely like RESOURCE.P00, RESOURCE.P01, RESOURCE.P02, etc. a few used the same name for each of the parts. Obviously you can't let the parts overwrite each other, so you may need to swap the contents of each disk in you mounted A: drive and hit CTRL+F4 each time.

Now, after all of that, the ideal is to simply create images or ZIPs of each disk for archival purposes and then install the games and zipping the installed folder for fast setup for play. You can use the SHP installers for this for the games that have one. This will work around the CPC protection of the AGI games. Otherwise you can simply mount the USB floppy as your DOSBox a: drive. You will still have to hit CTRL+F4 when you change the disks.

Collector is correct on that the SVN supports diskimage swapping for floppies.
The ctrl-f4 with swapping the files in the mounted folder should work. Although -t floppy does that kind of automaticly. (So you shouldn't need to press ctrl-f4)

So I have the USB 3.5" plugged in; and Windows sees it.

Mount A: A:\

If I do a DIR for the regular game 3.5" disks; it can't find anything in DOSBox (it sees the drive; just no files).

I happen to have a low density 3.5" disk (Sierra related) - and it sees the files.

In Windows, it sees the files for the game files just fine.

Any ideas?

Does it need to be mounted in a special way for it to recognize maybe high density disks on a floppy drive?

EDIT: Just saw this -

Z:\>MOUNT A A:\ -t floppy

Will try that in a second. Just copying files at the moment from Windows to the external (if for no other reason, than to have a back up of the floppies).

Tawmis wrote: EDIT: Just saw this -
Z:\>MOUNT A A:\ -t floppy

That seems to have fixed it.

Not bad... gone through about 40 disks - and so far, only Disk 1 of Colonel's Bequest could not be read.

Tawmis wrote:Not bad... gone through about 40 disks - and so far, only Disk 1 of Colonel's Bequest could not be read.

And one of my SQ3 disks (but have two sets; different version numbers; the other copied fine).

So about 100 floppy disks and 2 bad disks, for 20+ year old disks! Not a bad ratio!

Did you try Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier?

Collector wrote:Did you try Roadkil's Unstopable Copier?

I tried BadCopyPro which scans the disk and just reads it - without really accessing it; and it was 100% failure.

It simply asks if I want to format it. Not a big deal.

I have had better luck with Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier than any other. I think Dot has used it with great success, too. I am curious if it works when the other did not.

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

Collector wrote:I have had better luck with Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier than any other. I think Dot has used it with great success, too. I am curious if it works when the other did not.

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

I will be glad to check it out!

I still have quite a few Sierra 3.5" disks to go through. But I will download it tonight, and try it on Colonel's Bequest (Disk 1 - I didn't bother copying the other CB disks, since the first didn't work). Will also try it on the Space Quest 3 disk 1 I have, that had the same issue.

Let me know if you can't recover them. People here can help with the disks you cannot recover. You will need to get the version number to match.

Collector wrote:Let me know if you can't recover them. People here can help with the disks you cannot recover. You will need to get the version number to match.

Yeah. Didn't work.

I was stupid - put in Conquest of Camelot (though I had grabbed Colonel's Bequest) - and was jumping up and down when it said it copied 100%. Then I took out the disk and realized my error.

It took like 2 second, and said 0 files copied for Colonel's Bequest - Disk 1 and Disk 4.

Version 1.000.046

Sounds like the disk got wiped. 3.5" I assume. You need 1 and 4?

Collector wrote:Sounds like the disk got wiped. 3.5" I assume. You need 1 and 4?

Yeah. Those two somehow got wiped. BUT - I have been using the program you mentioned to get to other disks - where it can read the disk, but sometimes have a problem reading the files - so it sits there forever and times out. The program you mentioned so far has been successful in grabbing those files and copying them to my external. (And usually after it does it; it seems to also magically fix the 3.5" disk, because then the file is able to be copied with a regular copy {when I was curious if it would work after the program successfully recovered the file!}).