Full copy of Floppy Disk

Ice Rich

Ice Rich

Ice Rich

Soldato
Joined
3 Dec 2004
Posts
2,639
Hi all,

I have an older piece of equipment I use and there is an associated floppy disk with it that I want to backup as the disk is becoming old.

I've bought a USB floppy drive and select contents on the floppy and copy over to HDD. But, the program on the disk only starts when I run it by double clicking on the floppy file (not from the copied over file). Therefore, there must be something not being copied over?

Can you help please?

Thanks,
 
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Do you have "Show hidden files & folders" enabled in the "Folder Options" part of the Windows Control Panel?
 
Yep, just tried that and nothing else is shown.

When the application is run direct from floppy it boots. But when I run that app once it's been copied over, it reports something is missing.

All the files I can see on the floppy have been copied over.

Equipment is an x-ray type system and the disc is for using if there is a problem with unit booting.
 
When you talk about booting, do you mean that you insert the floppy and switch the device on or is the device already running when you try to run the program.
Booting refers to the initial system startup rather than an application loading.
(Not being funny but I can't quite tell what is going on.)

If it is failing at startup then you might need to install a bootloader on to the HDD, because I don't know what version of O/S it is using I cannot recommend one, but typing in the OS name and "Boot disk" should give you what you need to be able to make the HDD bootable.
 
mmj_uk said:
Does anything show up if you untick "Hide protected operating system files"?
Click to expand...

It probably will, however as I'm sure you are aware simply copying the OS boot files to the HDD will not work, the bootstrap etc has to be in a certain area of the drive to be recognised as bootable.
 
Ah right I see so you're just trying to run the floppy files on the HD? I thought you were copying them over to a new floppy and it wasn't working, why don't you just back up the files to a new floppy disk?
 
mmj_uk said:
Ah right I see so you're just trying to run the floppy files on the HD? I thought you were copying them over to a new floppy and it wasn't working, why don't you just back up the files to a new floppy disk?
Click to expand...

Not me... 'tis Ice Rich that is having troubles! ;)
I just chipped in with my 2p regarding your suggestion.
Cheers.
 
Thanks guys,

Right this is bizarre. If I copy over the files to another floppy (from HDD-Floppy), the application loads (even when I run it from HDD direct?!, but disk must stay in). Yet as soon as I remove the HDD it fails to load??

Either way, problem looks like it's fixed. As if my original disks fails I can copy the backup from HDD to Floppy again and that should work (hopefully).

Confused why it works like this though, perhaps there is some code that tells the app it should be reading from a:?

Thank you,
 
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Yeah BloodyL I didn't type that very well, I was talking to the OP based on what you said. :p

I would try transferring the files over to a new floppy disk (or better still just do a diskcopy), chances are the files won't run from HD due to compatiblity reasons... the program might be told to look for files specifically on A: drive or something.

edit: too late. :p
 
It's probably a horribly coded program and directly references A:\program.cfg or something...


See if you can edit any config/ini/txt files and look for A:\ references. You can edit these to the current folder.

I'd leave it in a simple folder too, ie..

C:\floppy\ and not C:\USers\Name\Documents\my stuff\copied over floppy y0\

Some programs won't like long foldernames.
 
It's ok really now Bledd.
My main objective was to back up the floppy in event the master disk goes wrong, and that has been achieved albeit with the use of floppy only.

I only need to use the backup in a like-for-like scenario (boot problems) and because of that the format would have needed to be the same in any case (i.e. a floppy).

Edit: my only concern is if all files on the original disk were copied over, I viewed with 'show hidden files and folders' and there was nothing hidden so I presume there could be nothing remaining?
 
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bledd. said:
It's probably a horribly coded program and directly references A:\program.cfg or something...


See if you can edit any config/ini/txt files and look for A:\ references. You can edit these to the current folder.

I'd leave it in a simple folder too, ie..

C:\floppy\ and not C:\USers\Name\Documents\my stuff\copied over floppy y0\

Some programs won't like long foldernames.
Click to expand...

Either that or some DOS copy protection :eek:
Tell us what the program is, and it may be fixable.

-Leezer-
 
We use EMT4Win to image floppies at work. It is much the same as trueimage but for floppies.

Have used it to get backups of some horrible non dos non readable disks with no problems at all and you can make self extracting images if that floats your boat.

http://dvalot.free.fr/emtcopy.htm
 
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