Author Topic: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?  (Read 14189 times)

tech

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Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« on: February 08, 2019, 05:42:57 pm »
I have a copy of OS/2 Warp 3 ME Localized. I backed the disks up using SuperCard Pro (SCP) card. The SCP is similar to KryoFlux, which makes low-level images of floppy disks regardless of their format.

Disk images (3-16, printer and display drivers) seem good when analyzed with HxC software. As you can see in the following screenshot, the outer track is divided into 9 sectors and the inner tracks are divided into 4 sectors as per XDF format.


The HxC software can even browse the outer FAT12 track and read the PACKING.LST file in each disk image.


The problem I'm facing now is how to convert the XDF images into a format that can be read by VirtualBox, such as .img or .dsk. When I use the HxC software to covert the raw SCP file to .img or .dsk, the VirtualBox mounts the converted images but the OS/2 system can't read them. (VirtualBox can mount other XDF images just fine, such as: ftp://osfree.org/upload/win1.dsk)

Here is a sample SCP image for disk 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1f8xymdw63qbpt8/2.scp.zip?dl=0

I hope someone can help me to preserve this rare version of OS/2!


Thank you.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2019, 06:23:36 pm »
Hi, welcome to the forum.

I WANT TO HELP !!!, but I'm not sure if I have the skill.  I'm very interested on preserving OS/2 in different languages.

What I have done in Warp 3 is converting the DSK images to IMA images with "WinImage" so I can use the IMA image on VirtualBox.

Do you have the original diskettes? You can also use WinImage create an exact image of it.
I don't have experience with SuperCard Pro (SCP) or KryoFlux, so I'm not sure if that software will create good images of the diskettes.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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tech

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2019, 12:52:58 am »
Hello Martin. Your help is really appreciated.

I have the original disks, but only have a USB floppy drive, which can't read them! I'm in the process of converting all my disks into digital images. Once the conversion is completed, then I'll get rid of the physical disks.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2019, 01:20:49 pm »
Hi

I notice that on your screenshots you are using a Mac, do you have any chance to try to find a Windows PC and try to use WinImage?

There is this note on wikipedia:
Quote
Floppy disks formatted using XDF can only be read in floppy disk drives that are attached directly to the system by way of a FDC. Thus, USB attached floppy drives cannot read XDF formatted media.
... Interesting.

So, it seems we require an older computer with a diskette drive attached directly to take the images.

Regards
« Last Edit: February 09, 2019, 01:27:09 pm by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
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tech

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2019, 05:09:18 pm »
Thank you Martin.

I tried with a Windows PC and WinImage version 9. The USB drive couldn't read the XDF disks. Unfortunately, I can't source an old PC with a legacy FDD.

I found FlashFloppy, an open source app in GitHub. There is some discussion there about OS/2 XDF images. I wrote a message to the programmer in hope he can expand his app to support converting SCP to XDF images.

Dave Yeo

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2019, 06:03:54 pm »
There's also this long thread, https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1902.0.html about writing an XDF extractor.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2019, 06:17:49 pm »
The diskette images are already on the CD, in a format that VirtualBox can use. Look in \DiskImages\OS2\35 and copy DISK0.DSK and DSK1-CD.DSK to your host hard drive. Select to create a new OS/2 Warp 3 virtual machine Attach DISK0.DSK to the Virtual diskette drive, and boot. Immediately, it will tell you to insert DISK1. Detach DISK0.DSK, and attach DISK1-CD.DSK then press enter. It will want the CD to be attached to the Optical drive. Then, just follow the directions to install Warp 3.

Some experimenting may be required.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2019, 06:40:27 pm »
I suggest trying a disk size of about 256 MB, the default 1 GB is probably bigger than Warp 3 can use. Don't forget, that you need to use FDISK to create partitions, before it can install to it. Just drop to a command line at the first menu option page. When it wants Ctrl-Alt-Del, remember to attach DISK0.DSK, then use the Input-> Keyboard thing for VBox to do it.

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #8 on: February 09, 2019, 08:09:19 pm »
I have a copy of OS/2 Warp 3 ME Localized. I backed the disks up using SuperCard Pro (SCP) card. The SCP is similar to KryoFlux, which makes low-level images of floppy disks regardless of their format.
That sounds like total overkill without success. Simply following the standard procedure will do (https://www.ibm.com/support/libraryserver_os390/BOOKS/EZ30IT00/2.4.7.1). It only requires an existing physical OS/2 Warp or DOS 6.3 installation and the XDFCOPY utility. For usage with Virtualbox you have to use a redirected installation path. A small FAT partition that contains the files from the disks should be the easiest way without networking involved.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #9 on: February 09, 2019, 09:16:21 pm »
Hi Tech

Doug's reply made me wonder. Is your OS/2 Warp 3 (localized version) distribuited as three diskettes and one CD-ROM, or is it like thirty-something diskettes ? If it is an CD-ROM, it is as simple as creating the ISO from the CD-ROM like Doug said.

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Martin Iturbide
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tech

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2019, 10:35:37 pm »
There's also this long thread, https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1902.0.html about writing an XDF extractor.
Thank you for the reference. I'm reading through the thread right now.

I suggest trying a disk size of about 256 MB, the default 1 GB is probably bigger than Warp 3 can use. Don't forget, that you need to use FDISK to create partitions, before it can install to it. Just drop to a command line at the first menu option page. When it wants Ctrl-Alt-Del, remember to attach DISK0.DSK, then use the Input-> Keyboard thing for VBox to do it.
The copy of OS/2 I have is on 3.5" diskettes only.
1 Installation disk
16 Setup disks
3 Printer Drivers disks
4 Display Drivers disks

I have a copy of OS/2 Warp 3 ME Localized. I backed the disks up using SuperCard Pro (SCP) card. The SCP is similar to KryoFlux, which makes low-level images of floppy disks regardless of their format.
That sounds like total overkill without success. Simply following the standard procedure will do (https://www.ibm.com/support/libraryserver_os390/BOOKS/EZ30IT00/2.4.7.1). It only requires an existing physical OS/2 Warp or DOS 6.3 installation and the XDFCOPY utility. For usage with Virtualbox you have to use a redirected installation path. A small FAT partition that contains the files from the disks should be the easiest way without networking involved.
This would require a legacy (IDE FLOPPY) disk drive, which I don't have (actually I have one but I don't have a computer with internal floppy connector on motherboard). The only working floppy drive I currently have is an external USB one, which cannot read XDF diskettes (USB drives are hardwired to read 512KB sectors only).

Hi Tech

Doug's reply made me wonder. Is your OS/2 Warp 3 (localized version) distribuited as three diskettes and one CD-ROM, or is it like thirty-something diskettes ? If it is an CD-ROM, it is as simple as creating the ISO from the CD-ROM like Doug said.

Regards
Only on diskettes. Please see my reply to Doug above.

Thank you all.

Bogdan

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #11 on: February 09, 2019, 11:50:27 pm »
This would require a legacy (IDE FLOPPY) disk drive, which I don't have
IDE floppy drives (and also SCSI attached) are a different topic. I cannot confirm that it would work with LS-120 or similar devices.

Quote
(actually I have one but I don't have a computer with internal floppy connector on motherboard).
But I can confirm it will work also with external connected diskette drives for mobile systems for instance IBM ThinkPads, Toshiba or Siemens, which use the PC AT floppy drive controller interface. It should be easy to find a working unit somewhere.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #12 on: February 10, 2019, 06:19:27 am »
Quote
The copy of OS/2 I have is on 3.5" diskettes only.

That's too bad. The chance of that many diskettes surviving without errors is actually pretty slim, but not impossible.

One suggestion, is to find an old computer that has a diskette drive, that still works (don't test it with those diskettes, in case the drive is damaged). If it works okay, see if you can install Warp to it, then you can decide how to proceed from there. If there are bad diskettes, you may need to find a copy of the bad one(s) somewhere. As I recall, each diskette has a part number. Search for that, and you might get lucky. You may also be able to find a CD image, which would make life easier.

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #13 on: February 10, 2019, 07:39:17 pm »
Hi

If it is of any help there are some Warp3 cd images here https://winworldpc.com/product/os-2-3x/os-2-30 and a Warp4 vdi image here https://archive.org/details/VMOS2Warp4.52

Maybe either of those would overcome the xdf floppy problem  :-)


Regards

Pete

tech

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Re: Recovering XDF Disks from Flux Images?
« Reply #14 on: February 23, 2019, 10:20:09 pm »
I finally made images of the OS/2 Warp 3 Arabic version. I recovered an old computer with IDE CD-ROM and FDD and proceeded as follows:

1. Format the HD as FAT32.
2. Install Windows XP.
3. Burn IBM PC-DOS 7.1 on a CD and boot the computer with it.
4. Use "xdfcopy.exe" to make images of the OS/2 diskettes and save the images on the HD.
5. After imaging all the disks, reboot the computer into Windows XP.
6. Login to the computer over the network to recover the images.
7. Upload the images to archive.org

I only encountered errors with disk #4. I tried my best to recover the disk and I hope it's fine.

Unfortunately, I could not install the system on any virtual machine I have. I tried VirtualBox, VMware Fusion and MS Virtual PC and all failed. I'll try to install the system on a real computer alter on and see.

Here is the archive link: https://archive.org/details/os2_warp_3_arabic