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Opus Discovery floppy copying

bversteebverstee
edited December 2011 in Hardware
I have a stack (about 60) of Opus Discovery floppies which I want to clone.

Reason is that I'm asked desperately to make copies of the disks as there are not many available on the market.
And I think there's so much interest in this one:
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180773369380
..because of the floppies maybe..

So I'm wondering what options I have.
Of course I can copy the floppies on an Opus (already set some emails out to people offering lot's of used floppies for sale to get my hands on a 'few').

But I also read this topic:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14067

I think it's not legal to make Opus-floppyimages and upload them because there is lot's of copyrighted material on them (e.g. Ultimate games).
So making floppyimages is not a real solution.

And I don't know if it's possible to write images to floppies in a high density PC drive: maybe the software can cope with that (more over because I can use HD floppies) but because of the smaller track size it's likely these floppies will not be able to be read by an 170KB Opus drive.
But I can try.


So:
1. Copy them one by one on an Opus itself
2. Copy them on a PC
3. Making floppyimages on a PC

What's the best?
Post edited by bverstee on

Comments

  • kd7vdbkd7vdb
    edited December 2011
    I would just put it up anyway, in this day and age i doubt companies are going to worry about spectrum games!
  • bversteebverstee
    edited December 2011
    kd7vdb wrote: »
    I would just put it up anyway, in this day and age i doubt companies are going to worry about spectrum games!

    Yes they do: Martijn van der Heijde is kindly asking producers from the past for their permission, and I don't want to create problems.


    Anyway, I was thinking: have someone succesfully been able to use that copying tool (in the link in the TS) with an Opus drive on a PC maybe?
  • DuddieDuddie
    edited December 2011
    Look here: http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm

    Line 145. of Features says it can clone Opus disks.
  • oboobo
    edited December 2011
    bverstee wrote: »
    Reason is that I'm asked desperately to make copies of the disks as there are not many available on the market.
    If there's any doubt about the condition of the disks and/or the content is unique, I'd highly recommend dumping them to a more detailed format first. Dumping straight to a simple sector format like .opd will lose any record of damaged areas, etc. Plus it's easy to convert the images from the detailed format to .opd.

    Andrew Barker has the most experience in preserving Opus disks, so I'd speak to him for further details.
    And I don't know if it's possible to write images to floppies in a high density PC drive
    The best solution is to match the drive types on both ends. If you want to continue to use the same low-density Opus drive, it'd be best to use a similar one on the PC side. It is possible to write low-density disks on a PC drive, but only to truly blank media that have never been formatted (or ones cleared with a bulk eraser device). Once written to by the low-density drive, the disks should never be modified on a PC drive or you'll have problems.

    Another option is to replace your Opus drive with a modern unit, and move all your media over to that. That way you'll have no trouble moving disks between the Opus and the PC. Then perhaps dump your existing disks then store them away safely, and use only the newly written copies made from the disk images.
    So:
    1. Copy them one by one on an Opus itself
    2. Copy them on a PC
    3. Making floppyimages on a PC

    What's the best?
    Definitely option 3 first, to ensure you have a good copy of the original disk. After that you can write the image back to disk (which covers option 2), or risk using/copying the original disks on the Opus (option 1).
  • MrCheeseMrCheese
    edited December 2011
    I can image them with my KyroFlux if that helps.
  • oboobo
    edited December 2011
    MrCheese wrote: »
    I can image them with my KyroFlux if that helps.
    That'd preserve the ultimate amount of detail, though can the KryoFlux utility create .opd Opus images from the dumps?
  • MrCheeseMrCheese
    edited December 2011
    obo wrote: »
    That'd preserve the ultimate amount of detail, though can the KryoFlux utility create .opd Opus images from the dumps?

    KyroFlux imaging is normally the first stage, once that is done then the KyroFlux image files can be used to produce the disc images for emulation. Regardless of the ability to currently produce images it helps as any bit rot on the discs could get worse over time. I would presume SPS can produce the .opd files at some point.
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