From: garyrockey6@gmail.com   
      
   On Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 9:05:41 PM UTC-5, Michael J. Mahon wrote:   
   > Dave Rawson wrote:   
   > > Michael J. Mahon wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> Next step--the two-sided index pulse mod... ;-)   
   > >   
   > >   
   > > I'm happy to report (with long and tortuous detours of heroic   
   > > proportion) that I've ported the oldest of my Apple sides over to PC as   
   > > proof-of-concept. I purchased the FC5025 and the Teac FD55GFR and the   
   > > combination worked. I took note of Mike's notes about ProDos being   
   > > faster and it worked as well as ".dsk", so why not.   
   > >   
   > > CiderPress recognizes the disks as MagicWindow files and will   
   > > automatically extract them to PC readable ".txt" files when requested!   
   > >   
   > > There are some eccentricities that I don't have the time or coherence   
   > > enough to describe right now, but I can already imagine some possible   
   > > approaches to dealing with them.   
   > >   
   > > So, I've read about 30 front sides and ache to read the backs. I've   
   > > jumped the E2 to no avail. All the floppies are already punched for   
   > > both sides since that's the way I used them.   
   > >   
   > > Has anyone been able to read the backs, punched and jumpered, yet?   
   > >   
   > > If so, is there any way to predict which of the FD55s allow this?   
   > Unfortunately, none. ;-(   
   > There are two ways to read the back sides:   
   > 1) Cut out or punch two new "index access" holes in the jacket on   
   > the other side (laterally, not up/down) of the jacket. It should   
   > be in an angular position symmetric with the existing pair. This   
   > set of holes will allow the FD-55 index sensor to "see" the existing   
   > index hole in the disk media when the disk is upside down in the   
   > drive.   
   > 2) Modify the FD-55 to either allow it to sense the index hold from   
   > either side (laterally, again) of the drive, or modify it to see   
   > "fake" index pulsed generated from the rotation of the spindle motor.   
   > (I'm still looking for the web article that described making these   
   > modifications.)   
   > > As an incidental approach to bad sector reads, has anyone tried the   
   > > "browse" option which allows working file by file, if necessary, so that   
   > > a whole ".dsk" image isn't 'bad' or necessary?   
   > I haven't tried any disks with bad sectors, but a quick perusal of   
   > the code of the host program suggests that all the good sectors are   
   > copied to the image, with only the bad sectors represented as either   
   > zeroes or some random data (I don't know which, and haven't done the   
   > experiment).   
   > If this is the case, even a "bummer" image will have all that the   
   > program could recover in "file mode".   
   > BTW, in my experience, the vast majority of disks with "bad sectors"   
   > are ultimately recoverable with unusual means, so don't throw them   
   > out if you might want the contents!   
   > > Thanks again to everyone for their encouragement and help!   
   > I'm very happy to hear that you are recovering your data. ;-)   
   > -michael   
   > NadaNet and AppleCrate II: parallel computing for Apple II computers!   
   > Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon   
   > "The wastebasket is our most important design   
   > tool--and it's seriously underused."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)