Found some old floppy disks for my 130XE (any way to verify or recover data?)

[techma...@yahoo.com]

I recently went home to my parents house and found 2 bins of 5-1/4
disks from the mid-80s for my Atari 130XE (although I can't find the
computer and hard drive right now).
I miss all of these games and applications. More importantly I miss
many of the programs in basic I wrote. I truly wonder if all of the
data is destroyed (it has been almost 20 years).
Has anyone found old disks from their Atari that survived such a long
time?
Is there a way I can verify if the data is still preserved using a
5-1/4 disk drive from an IBM PC?
Even better if I can find a way to recover the data if possible and
copy it onto a new 5-1/4 disk, preserving
the file format etc. I would looking to understand my options.
Thanks

[Russg]

<techmanm> wrote in message news:

You need to remember what floppy drive you had.
Your BASIC programs could be on single, enhanced or double density. You
probably had a 1050, XF551 or some other party drive. If you don't
remember, then get a double density drive, it will do all three formats.
You will need to find your 130XE and drive setup.
There is a 10502PC or something like that adapter to read floppies directly
to PC from a Atari floppy drive.
What you might want to do is send the disks to someone to test and copy for
you. Probably wouldn't want to make new 5 1/4" copies, but copy to .ATR
images, which you could then use in a PC Atari emulator. You could also
copy the files from floppy to an .ARC file.

[Thomas Richter]

techma...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I recently went home to my parents house and found 2 bins of 5-1/4
> disks from the mid-80s for my Atari 130XE (although I can't find the
> computer and hard drive right now).
> I miss all of these games and applications. More importantly I miss
> many of the programs in basic I wrote. I truly wonder if all of the
> data is destroyed (it has been almost 20 years).

The chances that the data is still readable isn't too bad. My 20 year
old Atari disks *are* still readable. Those were designed to last...

> Has anyone found old disks from their Atari that survived such a long
> time?

Yup.

> Is there a way I can verify if the data is still preserved using a
> 5-1/4 disk drive from an IBM PC?

Unlikely, unless you formatted them to double density (something the
regular Atari drives couldn't do). The problem is that the single or
enhanced density uses 128 bytes per sector, which is different from
the 256 bytes/sector an IBM compatible floppy controller is able to
understand (at least most of them).

> Even better if I can find a way to recover the data if possible and
> copy it onto a new 5-1/4 disk, preserving
> the file format etc. I would looking to understand my options.

Try to find someone near you that still owns an Atari disk, read
them from there, transfer them to a PC and write them onto your
hard disk or burn them on CD.

So long,
Thomas

[charlie]

well i am no pro with the 130 xl , but my only suggestion would be to
join this group and ask for answers there, i am a member ,alot people
help , some don't.

charles

http://www.atari-forum.com/index.php

[Steve Stupple]

Hi peeps

fortunately there is more space on ye olde 5.25 disks so the datastream
isnt as compacted.

The 1050 drive wasnt a true double density:( but 1.5. You would need dos
2.5 at least i would think.

As with backing disks up, best way would be to use an 8-bit machine,
ideally 130xe for the extra memory. Transfer it using taritalk or
something similar to the ST.

the st can work with 5.25 disk so if you have my favourite happy cart,
you can copy 5.25 to 5.25, well do whatever you want with it as you
would any other disk.

i did produce disk back up software (that could correct some crc errors,
typical disk copy protection terchnique of the time), along with tape to
disk when i wrote "the mockingbird menu" system. unortunately i lost all
my source in a house fire in the later 80's:( page 6 library was sent
copies, as in the pd, along with a few others, whether they have
survived is another matter.

i was building up my 8-bit stuff as i did enjoy programming those
machines. Jury's still out at the moment..

In message <doiKi.632$ua4...@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net>, Russg
<russ...@MUNGEsbcyahoo.net> writes

--
Steve Stupple

[DocRotCod]

Whereabouts do you live? I've got the means to back those disks up. I'm in
central Oklahoma.

Thomas

<techma...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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