[Coco] Help needed: problems with RETRIEV(E)ing DSK images

[Robert Gault]

I have found the following with 3.5 inch drives on my PC & Coco systems 
which may give you a clue. Many disks formatted on the Coco can't be 
read on the PC with PORT or RETRIEVE. I suspect that would be true of 
all new disks. However, any disk formatted on the PC with DSKINI can be 
read on the Coco.

Because of the above, any disk I intend to use to transfer data between 
the two units is first formatted on the PC with DSKINI.

Torsten Dittel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to save my collection of CoCo Disks into images and there are
> about 10% of the disks so far which fail only on the first sector of
> each track. I guess this is a timing problem. I'm using a 5.25" HD drive
> (set to 1.2MB in the BIOS) and the DOS of W98SE.
> 
> I'm not sure if it is possible to put a 35 track 5.25" DD CoCo drive
> into my PC (although I might still have some 80 track 5.25" DD CoCo
> drive around which I once used with a home-brew "double step" circuit on
> the CoCo). Which is the BIOS setting I should use with such a drive?
> 360KB is a 40 track double sided DD drive, isn't it?
> 
> I tried to RETRIEVE with both the Jeff Vasavour 1.3 and 1.6B CoCo2
> emulator's RETRIEVE.EXE. Is there any other version I missed? What about
> the changes John Collyer made? Couldn't someone experienced write a FAQ
> or tutorial explaining all the formats of all the emulators? I'm
> somewhat confused with JV, DK, MESS, .DSK, .DMK formats and maybe even
> something created with the Catweasel.
> 
> All disks are "normal" RS-DOS or OS-9 Lev.I disks with (hopefully) 35
> tracks only (is it common to have 40 track formats in OS-09 Lev.I?) and
> without copy protection (I'll try to rip those l8r with your friendly
> help... ;-)).
> 
> Thanks for your help and regards,
> ©o©o-Torsten :-)
> 
>