I'm finally getting my feet wet on the X68000, but I seemed to pick a more annoying one to work on... the compact model with 3.5 drives. Anyone have experience writing the game images to 3.5 disks. I'm trying a few things, but am having issues with my 3 mode disk drive.
In windows, open up a command box and format discs first using FORMAT A: /A:1024 /T:77 /N:8 /U Then try the program you are using to write images with. I use this method for preparing discs to transfer data / imags to 3.5" discs for the PC-9801. I have much better success using USB 3.5 drives then internal drives in PCs as not all bioses support Mode 3 discs.
should work in just about all versions of Windows, including Vista and Win7 (just tried it in Win7 for giggles and it works). However if in doubt when dealing with older software/hardware, use Win95 or just DOS.
Yeah I have been doing everything in DOS and 95 or 98. Even though I have a 3 mode drive, and a PC with the Bios setting for it, it refuses to do it, and constantly comes back with "Parameters not supported" message. I ordered a USB 3 mode drive in hopes it will work. Either the drive isnt truly 3 mode, or the bios is full of it. If anyone has a HumanOS 3.5 disk they can make me, I can work on getting a hard drive installed and write images directly on the x6x system. Thanks for the help guys.
I use Windows XP and Vista and I've never had any issues with reading or writing images. Conventional wisdom says you should use DOS / Win 95/98 for things to do with floppies but non Japanese versions of Windows 95 and 98 may not (and in experience they won't) read or write 1.25Mb (not 1.2mb) floppies correctly. Formatting the disc first does solve a lot of issues, as it tells you if your drive supports mode 3 drives and means image programs will write to the disc correctly. The three programs I use for disc images are (works for FM Towns and PC-9801 and the X68000 the same disc system, so it should work). DiskImage_13b - Reads and writes disk images, used it to back up a lot of my PC-9801 and FM Towns (the few games I have on floppies) collection. Virtual Floppy Image Converter 011010 - Converts between disk image formats, including extracting files from images so you could just copy them to floppies (which for hard drive images will be your only method). DiskExplorer 1.50 - Allows you to look at files within disk images You will find it very useful to set Windows XP or Vista to display Japanese for non unicode programs (allows Japanese files names to be written correctly if you extract files). The 1.25MB standard on the 3.5" disc was chosen specifically so that compatability with the 5 2HD format. To a program it didn't know or care if the disc was 3.5" or 5.25", so programs could be written and distributed on either without having to change anything or worrying if a file is on the disc. 77 Tracks was originally choosen for 5.25" discs because on the early drives, after track 77 the drive finds it harder to write tracks correctly, so for maximum compatability 77 was the choosen as the upper limit. One useful thing was that you can do a DISKCOPY on say a 3.5 to 5.25" disc and it will copy fine (something you can't do on a western machine).
Jamtex, you're a lifesaver. I should get my USB drive this week to test. Thanks a lot for the advice.
Is there a particular image format DiskImage prefers to write? Got in my usb drive today and it seems to work fine, but when I write any XDF or DIM, the system seems to either spit them out, or continuously read them.
Diskimage only writes one format, which is why you need Virtual Floppy Image Converter 011010 to convert it first. I believe that Diskimage is BSDSK format. So set the export folder, change format to BKDSK Format and drag the image to it and it'll convert it. HDM or HDS file are hard drive images and can't be written directly to disk, it shouldn't be too hard to find LHA for the X68000 and then you can use the PC version of LHA to create single disk compressed files for 1.25meg disks and then just copy them from the Hard drive to disc, then uncompressed them on the X68000 using LHA.
Well my problem is I cant boot my X68 since I dont have a disk that will boot it. I've been trying to make any game or sys disk with every utility I can find. Most of the images I have are either XDF or DIM. If I could only get the HumanOS disk to boot, I can install it to a scsi drive and be able to put all my X68 utils on there. Then I could easily write XDF images from the system with no problem.
Thanks for the advice. I worked on getting an external 5.25 PC drive hooked up to my Compact. Used some info from gamesx. While the drive seems to to be recognized, my legit games wont boot. I am going to try another PC drive and see if thats the problem first. My next step is to get a scsi drive (and CD) hooked up and load HumanOS to it, but if I cant get it to boot with anything I cant get it loaded.... So I'm kinda screwed till I get a working 3.5" OS disk or get my 5.25" external rig working. If anyone can make me a copy of the OS disk on 3.5", I'd be forever in your debt and pay for your trouble. I've seen some tutorials on getting a scsi drive hooked up and I have a feeling that is really my best bet. The Compact is just frustrating and finding real 5.25" external drives is a real pain in the ass.
Yeah I have come across that HD a few times, but my main goal is to rig a SCSI to IDE adapter and have a CF card run the OS. Any idea on the format of the HD, block size, or partition info? If its something I can configure on a DOS box and copy the system files to it, that would be much easier.
