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Re: svd drive for backup project

Reply interleaved below:

brad wrote:

i'm looking at eventually getting the semi-virtual disk drive for purposes
below..kinda juat tossing ideas out here on how to approach backing up my
large software collection (prob 2000 floppies and maybe another 1000 3.5"
versions and siders etc)

right now the below method i'm trying to hash out is just for the floppies
5.25" and i'm trying to do it in a manner in which i can backup to
image...onto ms-dos PC....and write it back to ap2 floppy to make spare/2nd
copy on blank disk..in order to test each disk as i do it...and/or tweak fix
or file it for another day or know to look for it elsewhere cause it is
toast...1 disk at a time....and as far as pc end ...using ciderpress for hds
and master disk catalog w/ciderpress to cat the works someday..whew...

anyway that is the football shaped area i'm shooting for in this post
more/less...looking for suggestions on my ramblings below

the semi virtual disk drive (SVD) link is below...and it now works with
apple II's.

 http://www.rothfus.com/SVD/index.php



assuming i'm reading the directions correctly and from the quote below from
the site

start quote

 You can run your favorite old program on your old hardware easily, and
without making any modifications to your old machine...the SVD looks just
like a floppy drive to it.You don't have to open up your PC either.

You can easily create a real floppy disk of your favorite program or DOS by
booting DOS from the SVD and running the standard backup program targeting a
blank floppy in one of your existing drives

You can back-up or make "images" your exiting software collection, saving it
for posterity.These images are loaded up to your PC in standard formats

end quote


This process will work for all "normal" disks--no wierd copy protection
schemes, since it relies on being able to copy the disk.

A much simpler method that accomplishes the same thing is to use a
CFFA card in an Apple II and copy your collection of disks to image
files on the CompactFlash card.

After you have loaded up a few 32MB partitions with disk images, you
can plug the CompactFlash card into a PC reader, open it as a volume
with CiderPress, and copy entire partitions to files on the PC.  From
there, you can back them up to optical drives, or whatever.  You can
also check out the images using an emulator on the PC, or on a real
Apple II using the CFFA.

This approach has much higher storage density than the SVD, and
the CompactFlash card itself is a very convenient backup medium.

(Ack!  I just read to the bottom of your message and note that
you already know how to do this.  Good.)


assuming i have this correct..once the SVD device is hitched up correctly to
my apple ii device with a standard floppy drive...i could access my old
apple ii drive from the regular ms-dos PC also attached to the SVD ....make
a disk image of said floppy....save disk image ..then turn around and copy
said disk image (as  a test of how well this works and to also see if
anything is wrong with orig disk after the fact on a fresh floppy on another
apple ii..)  to a blank disk on a drive back on orig // machine

if my ramblings have explained things correctly...in one more or less
seamless operation ...i could put my "very fragile 1 or 2000 collection of
floppys 25yrs old" and make an image of it at the pc end (weather the floppy
is toast or not does not matter and image is made can worry about how
crapped out it might be on a fresh copy) ......then turn around and xfer the
image back into floppy format (to also test viability of the transfer 1 disk
at a time) on a backup spare floppy back on the apple // machine

by doing it this way ..i've taken my fragile floppy ...made a disk image of
such...saved it to pc for eventual backup to cd...turned around tested the
image by return writing back to the apple ii blank floppy i have placed
therein.....i then take the NEW copy and check it out ..muck with it...see
if i can make it work on those i assume don't work w/o further mucking up
the original....on another apple 2 nearby...say viola it works....and file
it and go on to disk 2....to the pc..etc


Just for the record, unless something very bad has happened to your
floppy disks while in storage, they really aren't "fragile".  I've
examined lots of early 1980s floppies, and have found them to be
quite stable and robust if stored dry and not-too-hot, and not next
to a 10 kilowatt transformer.  ;-)  The only truly "fragile" thing
about them is their label adhesive, which has a 50/50 chance of no
longer adhering to anything.

If they've been spilled-on (common for "bad" disks) or stored in a
warm, moist environment that encouraged mold to grow on them, they
may require removal from their jackets and a careful cleaning with
Windex, or, if appropriate, a spot cleaning with a drop of Windex
on a Q-tip.  For the vast majority of the tiny minority of "bad"
disks, that makes them fully readable.

There may remain a small minority of the tiny fraction of "bad" disks
which cannot be recovered just by cleaning.  Most of these will be
found to have errors on track 0 (if DOS) or some other track whose
content is either easily replaced or is irrelevant to the content of
the disk.

In short, almost everything that has not been destroyed by bending,
soaking, heating, or demagnetizing can be recovered without too much
trouble--particularly since only a small fraction of any reasonably
stored collection will need any extraordinary measures.

I'm waiting for the ultimate irony--that ten years from now, a lot
of CDR and DVD-R backups may be unreadable, while the original
floppies may still be quite readable!  ;-)


so assuming the above is hunky dory..i move on to salvage operation disk #2
in same manner..when everything is said and done..i have entire floppy
collection (if works or not but an image thereof) on my PC and backed up to
CD...and prob cataloged using MDC and ciderpress...i would also have to use
cider press for say sider 10mb hd backups to cffa flash card but that is
another backup way to do stuff...i'm currently thinking floppy disks 1st
because most fragile.....anyway it is backed up ..my eventual entire
software collection hds and all floppys....and in Master Disk
Catalog....(from ciderpress).....i also by testing the write back to the
floppy as i go thru my collection have a fresh mint 5.25 backup (to muck
with assuming disk is flakey and needs to be tweaked) and proved that the
whole process works ..at least for floppies .....one disk at a time

i only want to go thru my collection one time....make a fresh backup to orig
media (i have 3000 floppies 5.25 mint back from when people were dumping
such on ebay for 15 bucks a 1000)....for tweaking purposes and to prove on
each disk that i did  not mess up (ie just copying w/o testing prob is not
good)...and then of course use ciderpress etc for hds and other larger media
and eventually get it all in Master Disk Catalog Format ..so i can find
stuff


While I can understand your desire to make "fresh" floppy copies, I
think that the "failure rate" data does not support using that approach
_en masse_ with a collection.  It is justified for floppies that are
found to be failing for one reason or another, but this will be a small
minority, unless something pathological happened--faulty original media,
mistreatment during use, or hazardous storage.


again i know i can do something like this with floppies and ciderpress etc
and other convential xfer..but if i have this figured right and set the
process correct...i can do each disk as a loop....from ap2 to pc as
image...then right back to blank floppy disk as a spare disk  on ap2
again....then do a boot up on 2nd machine to see if it works..tweak the
spare 2nd disk if possible or file it away for further work if it is really
broke...

so if getting a SVD device can streamline this whole process and i'm
basically limited in speed on the floppy disk speeds etc...maybe this is the
way to go at least by my floppy collection...

i KNOW i could just pop it all off the apple 2 to a partition on a cffa
card...256mb scandisk card...and just ciderpress the works and just walk it
over to the pc via the scandisk card ..i will have to do it that way for the
hd's ...but seems a bit more interesting to look at one floppy at a time as
i go thru....and test/check....then just mass shoot them into a cffa
scandisk directory..and then do the testing in bulk later......this way i
can "be one with the floppy" after trying to catalog my ap2
hardware..anything i can do to make this more interesting and can pick up
and walk away from it then pick it up again later is prob the better
method....


I think the CFFA method is by far the easiest and best method.  For this
application, an SVD is just a "gadget" which adds little value.  Again,
in my experience, copying a large collection of flopppies to fresh
floppies has a very low potential payoff, and is a *lot* of trouble,
not least of which is that you double the volume of disks that you
must store (surely you aren't planning to discard the originals??).


anyway suggestions...improvements...a ciderpress/svd manual of the vulcan
logical method to do this ????? i'm open to suggestions


A good question to ask yourself is, "What will I do if I find that my
copy/image of a disk is bad, and how will I know it is bad?"  If the
answer is that you will "verify" the new disk, then you won't really
know anything that you didn't know when you read the original and saved
the image.  If it's something more complex--examining files, playing a
game, running a program--then *that* will take the lion's share of the
time, and will delay you endlessly trying to verify that what you found
is what you should have found, etc.

If you find one that's "bad", will you just try to copy it again, or
will you attempt to recover the disk manually (time consuming...).

I think that you will finish this project only if you can make it
as much a batch process as possible, with as few stops to "think"
as possible.  3000 is a large number.  ;-)  (Of course, you should
verify that your process is working by *occasionally* re-creating
a disk.)

In short, my recommendation is to do a simple, "batch" backup of
as many disks as you can read, and note the problem disks.  Save
all the originals, and don't make floppy copies.  If you ever need
to use a disk, produce one as needed.  If you need one that wouldn't
back up, go back to the (well stored) original and attempt a recovery.

Live long and prosper--and don't waste your valuable time doing
difficult, unnecessary things.  ;-)


brad
former sysop lost gonzo bbs

p.s. and for those interested i'm getting close to getting thru all my docs
and hardware/books/miscl of my apple 2 collection...so i'm kinda just
looking ahead to the software end (i assume those 18 or so siders i have
have some software on them...might be safe to back up to image 1st then muck
with them on hardware after the fact)...trying to be careful and make it not
so damn boring...also as i've made an inventory sheet of each of my hardware
/books or whatever i've also made an index (about 25 lines a page) of number
and item and 1line descrip..i figure that alone is gonna be around 75
pages....when done i will eventually xerox the works so i can sort the stuff
now indexed by item numbers into another set of binders by book/doc/or
hardware type

anyway...so it goes....


I appreciate your persistence!

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."