The problem that (e.g.) a copy of Xak2 doesn't work with HDDEMU and does work on most emulators is not because the MSX FDD emulators are crap, it's because PC emulation is not good enough to trigger the copyprotection.

At least, that's what I assume.

I think, however, that it would be a good idea to introduce a new kind of disk images, which makes it possible to support all exotic copyprotections. HDDEMU uses a nice header file to store special sector information.

I thought there was such a tool to create full tracks as images in stead of just sectors. Though the tool only works in MS-DOS and I'm not sure if it works in a DOS-box in Windows.

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I thought there was such a tool to create full tracks as images in stead of just sectors. Though the tool only works in MS-DOS and I'm not sure if it works in a DOS-box in Windows.

would that be usable to make images for use on a real MSX?

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I thought there was such a tool to create full tracks as images in stead of just sectors. Though the tool only works in MS-DOS and I'm not sure if it works in a DOS-box in Windows.

I would be very interested in that if it exists. I tried making a "track-image" using the adr (amiga diskreader), but I failed.

home.t-online.de/home/ChristianK./adr-project/index-e.html

Have you tried fde.com?
I usually use fde.com for loading dsk image files on my FS-A1GT.
And XAK2 is absolutely played well as I remember. If your image files didn't work well, I guess they probably have some errors.

But fde.com also doesn't play well some image files. For example, I failed to load XAK1 with FDE.com. Furthermore, there are no dsk loading programs that can save on dsk images as I know.

I hope that they are upgraded to be more powerful and have functions such as saving in dsk files.

Hi guys,

This question could be resolved so easy.
Linux (works in DOS too) have a tool called RaWrite (rawrite.exe in Windows/DOS world), you need specify the dsk (or any data file) and the destinastion drive - including target disk format 360/720/1.2/1.44 - and ready, all dsk data will be transferred to disk.

The download site is http://www.tux.org/pub/dos/rawrite/ and includes C source code if interest to you.

Leidson Campos (BR)

I am not talking about .dsk images (why would I use a tool in Linux if I could just dd it directly to /dev/fd0?). I am however still interested in a tool that can dump all disk data (including the track data itself, not just the records within the track).

You can use diskdupe in DOS to create those images.

By the way, I know that some games do not start using getdisk/putdisk/start.com

Especially some Japanese games have a mix of sector reading and real files, which are read using BDOS.

To start these, create a folder on your HDD, copy all files from all discs (normally only disc 1 contains files) using the regular copy command in DOS into this folder.
Then use getdisk to create the image file and store it in the same folder.

Then use start .com in this folder, when the game uses file read functions, it will now find the required files in the current folder.

Michel, do you have a list of games that work that way? On the FAQ there is already a list of games that work with START.COM without this trick. Would be nice to complete it!
Great hint, by the way!

Sorry, I don't have a list of games, but you can easily figure it out by trying it on games that don't work the regular way and display a file list on disc 1

By the way, which faq are you referring to ? Cannot find anything on www.faq.msxnet.org

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Sorry, I don't have a list of games, but you can easily figure it out by trying it on games that don't work the regular way and display a file list on disc 1 By the way, which faq are you referring to ? Cannot find anything on www.faq.msxnet.org

That FAQ. http://faq.msxnet.org/suffix.html#DSK, it's in the explanation of getdisk.pma.

Thanks, I've seen it now. Never knew that my utility became so popular !

Honestly, I never got START.COM to work in the first place, even after attempting to adapt the disk image that was made. Later I found FDE.COM and that works like a charm.

About disk emulators for MSX, that I've used:

START.COM :
+ small (Only 512 bytes)
- Bad disk drive emulation. Only most used direct I/O BDOS functions are handled
- Runs games under DOS2 (All games don't like that)
- Memory mapper can not be used because of DOS2


HDDEMU :
+ Virtual DOS1 environment
+ Partial support for copy protections
+ Good disk drive emulation done by using virtual disk ROM
- Runs only in MSX tR
- Any program requiring memory mapper will not work.


FDDEMU :
+ Real DOS1 environment
+ Memory mapper support (best result with 2x memory mapper)
+ Very good disk drive emulation done same way as in F-MSX or RU-MSX
- Partial support for copy protections (better that HDDEMU), but without program to dump them.
- Works only about 50% of disk ROM's
- Only for Novaxis SCSI (Maybe IDE support some day)