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

[Torsten Dittel]

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 :-)