The Sinclair QL Forum

I've been reclaiming some documents, software. and SB & C source code from old MDV's and after re-felting they still seem to have an occasional bad sector. I was able to use mdvedit (or is it opdedit?), which I found in the In_Out_Kit_v1_05, to go through sector-by-sector on the MDV and reclaim the last few chunks of code that didn't copy onto my SD card.

Wondering if there is a utility that would just dump all the sectors into a file at once so I can do this on an emulator instead of actual microdrives since it has to scan and find each sector as you step (so it has to make a full loop usually). It looks like mdvedit only skipped a couple of sectors that it couldn't read .

I will say, when microdrives work, there is something satisfying about hearing it move the tape forward sector-by-sector as it dumps the file (I usually do a copy to con first to see if/where it hangs since the buffer usually lets me quickly copy it the second time). If only they were more reliable...I've also discovered that sometimes lifting one corner of the MDV up can help it read past a troubled spot, though not always. vDrive just makes a beep...maybe we need to record that sound and have vDrive play it :-/

You could try something like the following if you have Toolkit 2:


Then check for files with an asterisk at the start/end of their name. Those were corrupt. Copy the others to "a safe place" then repeat the format.

I used to do this a few times and usually managed to rescue all my files.

Might help?

Cheers,
Norm.

In the MDI driver http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/utils/MDIdriver108.zip there is a program (SuperBASIC with a shot M/C routine to do the actual reading) that will read all the sectors on a Microdrive cartridge (good bad or indifferent) to convert it into an image file. There are also facilities to examine and repair images. And once the Microdrive has been read, you can do all the editing in an emulator.

The program is not very elegant, but it gets the job done.

NormanDunbar wrote:You could try something like the following if you have Toolkit 2:

Code: Select all

format ram1_mdv1

Then check for files with an asterisk at the start/end of their name. Those were corrupt. Copy the others to "a safe place" then repeat the format.

I used to do this a few times and usually managed to rescue all my files.

In an actual TK2? As far as I know, this was only in QJumps RAMPRT.

Nah, that's never been part of TK2 - It came with RAMPRT as Ralf says and some later Miracle disk interfaces (Trump Card and later)

Tobias

Interesting. I never had Ramprt.
Mystery!

Cheers,
Norm.

NormanDunbar wrote:Interesting. I never had Ramprt.
Mystery!

Yes that is quite a mystery. So the only solution can be: RAMPRT was incorporated in the last version of TK2 of the Trump Card (perhaps) or deep buried in your BOOT file . But I do not believe this. Why had TT made this a separate extension? It is very old from the QRAM suite. Or you have used QFlash (from which we do not know if this was first or RAMPRT's MDV image but QFlash use MDVLOAD)

FORMAT ram1_mdv1 is not incorporated in SMSQ/E...by the way.

Hi Ralf,

I can only think that it was TK2 on my Trump Card, or Gold Card. It's still a mystery.

Cheers,
Norm.

I used this method on my trump card

Probably the code has found its way into the Trumpcard ROM. The Trumpcard manual states it:

---------- snip ----------

Microdrive Imaging

Microdrive imaging is a very fast method of loading files from a
Microdrive cartridge. To produce a Microdrive image, a RAM Disk is
formatted with the name of the Microdrive required:

FORMAT ram1_mdv2 loads an image of mdv2 into RAM Disk 1

---------- snip ----------