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stepleton:
--- Quote ---I plan on wiping them with IPA before trying to read them again.
--- End quote ---
Heaven knows I love the 'propes, but there are people who know better than me who tend to argue against IPA as it apparently can dissolve certain parts of the media. For these folks, the solvent of choice (of options available today to most buyers) is cyclomethicone, which sounds exotic but turns up in places like cosmetics and deodorants. You can find it at cosmetics supply outlets.
Here is an earlier LisaList2 discussion on the topic.
rayarachelian:
--- Quote from: stepleton on May 03, 2022, 03:29:30 pm ---Heaven knows I love the 'propes, but there are people who know better than me who tend to argue against IPA as it apparently can dissolve certain parts of the media. For these folks, the solvent of choice (of options available today to most buyers) is cyclomethicone,
--- End quote ---
"Seconded" (as Scruffy would say) - but yeah if the media itself is falling apart, I'd be super careful to not clean it. I'd rather clean the heads of a floppy drive instead after trying to get whatever was still readable off it. I wouldn't use something like Disk Copy if there are errors because it stupidly aborts rather than letting you save what was available for reading. You're better off with something like CopyIIMac which will let you duplicate a bad disk and ignore the errors, and then you can image the copy from it with DiskCopy 4.2 or CP FastCopy.
Certainly if this is the very last copy of a specific piece of software, the odds are grim, but you never know when a second copy with a different set of bad sectors will turn up, and in that case you can merge the good sectors from image to another. In fact, this is why I wrote this little beastie: https://github.com/rayarachelian/lisaem/blob/unstable/src/tools/src/dc42-copy-selected-sectors.c
I had picked up a pre-release version of a MacWorks floppy that had errors on, but every time I imaged it, I got a slightly different image (with errors) so wanted to merge in bits of files from the release version, but couldn't get a working copy. Still, I'm all about small sharp tools...
Obviously we're not going to be able to recover physically damaged sectors, but for weak ones where some bits flip back and forth and it's isolatable (is that even a word?), we might get lucky and guess at the original value(s) and get a recovery.
So far I've played with CP Fast Copy, and CopyIIMac. Is there any other early Mac-era copier that could help? Preferably something that will create disk images that we can mess with?
blusnowkitty:
--- Quote from: rayarachelian on May 03, 2022, 06:21:46 pm ---So far I've played with CP Fast Copy, and CopyIIMac. Is there any other early Mac-era copier that could help? Preferably something that will create disk images that we can mess with?
--- End quote ---
If you wanted to go the hardware route, the Applesauce FDC claims compatibility with Lisa 400k and Mac 400k/800k disks.
https://applesaucefdc.com/what-is-applesauce/
pintoguy:
Looks like they're still working on it... Here is the update I got today:
"Hi Bruno, I hope this email finds you well.
I apologize for not being able to update you yet, I would like to assure you that we are still looking into this and we should have an update for you very soon.
I don't know the absolute timeline but I should be emailing you back sometime at the start of the next week.
Thank you for your patience! Sincerely,
Arush Mankotia
Support Engineer
Omnis Software US"
pintoguy:
OK so I did some work on these floppies. I have three of them. One is an Install2 disk with a serial number starting with 7IN. The other two are Install1 and Install2 with a serial number starting with 8IN.
After IPA cleanup (yes IPA works very well for me - I have revived dozens of bad floppies using it), I was actually able to read the file "Install Omnis" from the 7IN-Install2 disk on my Lisa, and copied it on the Lisa 10MB widget HDD. Installation seems to have worked if done from the HD, but failed when done from the FDD (failure to display a window). Once installed, Omnis needs to be run in its own environment. However, when launching, it requires the "Master Disk", and none of the floppy disks get accepted.
I used DiskIIMac to make floppy copies, using the "sector mode". The "bit mode" did not work too well. After writing these diskettes, I was able to make diskcopy4.2 images, which I'm attaching. Perhaps someone will be able to take it from here. Using fedit, I suspect that the the Install1 floppy is simply a Lisa 7/7 boot floppy, whereas the Install2 disks are the Omnis programs. Again, fedit tells me that IN7 is likely Omnis 3.2 whereas IN8 is version 3.3. Also 8IN-Install1 is the worst with about 40 out of the 80 tracks throwing errors, whereas In7-Install2 (one bad track #73) and IN8-Install2 (two bad tracks #51 and 79) are quite a bit better.
Finally, I was not able to successfully use BLU to read these disks. When checking them, it seems to get stuck on the first read error and requires reboot.
Thanks again for the help and great advice.
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