exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Someone had changed Iceblox plus so that it works on my 4MB ST. When I pulled out my test SD card to transfer the file from PC to Atari It had gone bad. Some weird folder was there named with a few symbols. I reformatted the card and created a gemdos partition using pp driver and everything was fine again.

The interesting thing is that this was working and had been sat in storage, so this kinda points the finger of blame at windows, since that's the first thing I put the card into after a while of not using it.

I want to eventually get the kind of floppy controller that will allow me to do small transfers direct from disk.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 18 Jan 2021 13:26

exxos wrote: 18 Jan 2021 13:15 I started using this one to backup with https://www.easeus.com/backup-software/tb-free.html

Easus is good, but for SD cards Win32DiskImager is my weapon of choice :)

Simple to use, one shot image of the whole card.

Rubber could you perhaps guide @Cosmic Puppet here a bit? He can't seem to do a 'one shot image of the whole card' which is what he's trying to do. I don't use Windows, I just use Linux which has all these tools built in.

Steve wrote: 20 Jun 2022 11:49
Rubber could you perhaps guide @Cosmic Puppet here a bit? He can't seem to do a 'one shot image of the whole card' which is what he's trying to do. I don't use Windows, I just use Linux which has all these tools built in.

To take an image using Win32 disk imager is simple:


Insert the SD card, select it from the 'device' dropdown on the right, click on the folder icon, locate the folder you want to save in and type a file name.

Then click the 'Read' button and wait for it to complete.

To write an image, select the image and device as above. When you select the image it will enable the 'Write' button. Click write and wait for it to complete. Simples.

Nothing else is needed to image the SD card.

My personal preference is to stick to ST sized partitions, though I know that can be a bind.

As long as PPeras tools are used to set up the partitions, then they should all be just visible under windows. HDDRIVER does need a little more setting up, but it will still ultimately work as per PPeras in that all partitions are visible to Windows.

Windows will often put crap on the partitions, but I've always been able to largely ignore that.

The problem is that if your partitions are broken, they will get imaged broken, so you need to make a working one first, then image before using it in anger.

The other thing to consider is how much RAM you have, as all the drivers will fill it up, and even with 1MB it may not be enough.

Thanks @exxos for pulling this thread up.

Thanks @Steve Was about to leave it. :lol:

Thanks @rubber_jonnie It does list the partitions but I can't seem to select them all. Is there a way to create an image of the whole lot or is it limited to 1 image per selectable drive? If so I'm best just dragging and dropping folders like I've been doing.

Tone.

Cosmic Puppet wrote: 20 Jun 2022 13:40 Thanks @exxos for pulling this thread up.

Thanks @Steve Was about to leave it. :lol:

Thanks @rubber_jonnie It does list the partitions but I can't seem to select them all. Is there a way to create an image of the whole lot or is it limited to 1 image per selectable drive? If so I'm best just dragging and dropping folders like I've been doing.

Tone.

What I said about Win32diskimager is all about backing up the WHOLE SD card at once. It will create an image that you can write back to a blank SD card of the same size if anything gets corrupted.

Be aware that with Win32DiskImager you don't need to select all of the partitions, just the device, in my example D: Then when you read the device it creates an image of the whole card, not just D:

D: is the device (It might be something else on your PC), and the Atari drives are all partitions off that device. Back up the device, everything is backed up, partitions and all.

I have too many times been in the position of having a corrupted SD card and no backup and having to start from scratch, and these images let me image right back to where I was, partitions and all.

Yeah that doesn't look to me that win32disk is able to do a '1 shot copy of the entire disk' as it looks like it only allows you to select a partition. For instance in Linux I can select the actual 'device' which backs up the entire partition table including all partitions. This is what he needs.

If when he plugs the SD card into the PC it opens up 15 Atari drives, just selecting one of those drives isn't doing what he needs. That would just back up that one particular partition.

Gotta run guys. Will try it again when I get back. Cheers!

Steve wrote: 20 Jun 2022 13:56 Yeah that doesn't look to me that win32disk is able to do a '1 shot copy of the entire disk' as it looks like it only allows you to select a partition. For instance in Linux I can select the actual 'device' which backs up the entire partition table including all partitions. This is what he needs.

If when he plugs the SD card into the PC it opens up 15 Atari drives, just selecting one of those drives isn't doing what he needs. That would just back up that one particular partition.

Nope that's not correct. Win32DiskImager is specifically designed to back up the whole SD card. Read my last post, D: is a device containing all of the partitions, which all get backed up to the 1 shot backup that covers the entire contents of the SD card.

Don't think of the SD card as a disk, think of it as a device containing all your disks.

Trust me I have done it dozens of times and it backs up the entire SD card and you can then restore it if needs be.

@Cosmic Puppet give it a go :)

Steve wrote: 20 Jun 2022 14:03 @Cosmic Puppet give it a go :)

Back and about to try it now. :lol:



Either I'm still doing it wrong or I need another version. Is yours version 1.0 @rubber_jonnie

I've done a vid 'cause I'm terrible at explaining meself.

Tone