[Coco] Creating a .dsk image

[Robert Gault]

Bill wrote:
> Remembering that I'm basically brain-dead, how would I create a .dsk image
> of a physical floppy I have in my possession on my Coco3 and transfer it to
> my PC hard drive, using DriveWire3?
> 

There are easier ways ( and better) than creating the image using 
DriveWire. In fact, there probably is not any way you could create a 
DECB floppy disk using DriveWire. Based on your previous questions you 
probably mean an OS-9 disk which is a good thing.

Enter a new disk name in Winserver. If you check with a PC program, you 
will see that a new zero byte file has been created. Since the file is 0 
bytes, you can't use Backup and it may not be safe to do anything else 
with it until it is formatted.
Boot into NitrOS-9 with DW3 drivers either from Winserver or your real 
Coco. Use Dmode to set correct properties for a floppy in one of the /X# 
descriptors and format the new disk. Alternatively, keeping the default 
/X# values, enter specific values as parameters into the format command.

If you examine the new disk at this time in the process, you will see it 
has grown but is still not a full disk. Now that both your old and new 
disks have the same format, run the Backup command. MAKE SURE that 
verify is turned off for Backup. If you don't turn off verification, 
Winserver will attempt to read sectors beyond the end of your disk and 
may not stop.