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Creating your own Amiga Disk Images
Paul McGunnigle - 8th May 1999


Forward: Transferring Amiga Disk Images is not easy. I'm not saying thats its the hardest thing in the world (its not), but if you don't have a reasonable knowlege of MS-DOS & AmigaDOS / WorkBench - please don't attempt this. Wait for your files to appear on the Internet.

This is a quick rundown on how I get my Amiga disk images across from my Amiga. This is a simplified way of how I get the disks across (I actually use a disk I created myself, but this way should work fine).


1. Hardware Required
  • Amiga with 2mb of Memory
  • PC with free 9pin Com Port (Com2 ?)
  • Null Modem Cable (9 pin female - 25 pin female)
    {availble from all good electronics stores eg. Maplin}
  • 2 Disk drives recommended
  • An Actual Amiga Disk (prefably a backup ~Note)


2. Software Required
  • Twin Express (Amiga & PC)
  • Transdisk (Amiga, comes with Fellow)
  • Devblock (Amiga)
  • DMS (Amiga)
  • xDMS (PC)
All software required is available on my home page


3. Setting up Software
You will need access to a PC with a Workbench loaded and 2mb of memory, (1mb free after WB loaded). Try and get the smallest version available (2.0 should be fine).
Start WB and type "Newcli" in the "run" box - this will start WB's command line interpreter (which we shall work from).
If you need to get the software onto the Amiga after you have downloaded it (e.g. Twin, Transdisk etc), get a DD 720k disk and format it on your PC to 720k, get it accessible via the Amiga using CrossDOS (comes supplied with some workbench's). Get Twin, Transdisk, Devblock & DMS onto a disk which you will need to have access later.


4. Step by Step Copy
  1. Start WB --> Newcli

  2. Copy Twin and any other files not on the WB bootdisk into RAM:

  3. Change to the RAM Drive
        RAM:

  4. Put Source Disk in DF1:

  5. Use either Transdisk or Devblock to make the diskimage of the disk in DF1:
        TRANSDISK DF1: RAM:diskname.adf
        GETDEVBLOCK DF1 0 0 0 1760 RAM:diskname.adf

  6. Start Twin Express on Amiga
        TWIN SER

  7. Start Twin Express on PC
        TWIN COM2

  8. Copy file onto PC (Type on PC Side)
        COPY ~ram:diskname.adf C:\

  9. Send Quit command on eaiter side
        QUIT

  10. Delete diskimage from Amiga's RAM
        DEL ram:diskname.adf

    - Disk Transfer Complete, go test your disk on an Amiga Emulator.


5. If Transdisk / Devblock fails --> Use DMS
What happens if the wonderful Transdisk and Devblock both fail to read the disk, you have one more option (that I know of). Using DiskMasher (DMS) {thanks to Trev for showing me this method}.

DMS is available from AmiNet (good luck finding it), or from my homepage. It creates a compressed diskimage from your disk. I currently use it with one drive only, its good for a last resort but is slower that the other's. You will also need xDMS (also at my homepage) to un compress the file to an ADF file (or run it through your emulator in DMS format).

  1. Start WB --> Newcli

  2. Copy DMS to RAM:
        COPY DMS RAM:

  3. Change to Ram Drive
        RAM:

  4. Start creating file using DMS
        DMS READ RAM:diskname
    (disk in DF0 and NO extension name)

  5. Start Twin Express on Amiga
        TWIN SER

  6. Start Twin Express on PC
        TWIN COM2

  7. Copy file onto PC (Type on PC Side)
        COPY ~ram:diskname.dms C:\

  8. Send Quit command on eaiter side
        QUIT

  9. Delete diskimage from Amiga's RAM
        DEL ram:diskname.dms

  10. Got DOS and use the un compressor called xDMS to un compress the file to ADF format.
        XDMS U diskname.dms


~Note:
A backup disk is preferred because the original disks normally have copy protection built in and this causes difficulty in reading the files.