Resolved Terminal command to 'force' mounting external floppy drive? (MISSION ABORTED)

[MarkC426]

Looking for a Terminal command to make my USB 3.5" floppy drive mount on the desktop (PPC 10.5.8).
CD and floppy drives only show when a disk is inserted, and MacOS won't read the disks.

Long story short...running an Atari emulator, MacOS won't read the Atari disks when inserted, so closes the window.
I want to be able to select the floppy drive from the emulator before the disk is inserted, then the emu will read the Atari format (in theory......🤔)

 

[Lastic]

Looking for a Terminal command to make my USB 3.5" floppy drive mount on the desktop (PPC 10.5.8).
CD and floppy drives only show when a disk is inserted, and MacOS won't read the disks.

Long story short...running an Atari emulator, MacOS won't read the Atari disks when inserted, so closes the window.
I want to be able to select the floppy drive from the emulator before the disk is inserted, then the emu will read the Atari format (in theory......🤔)

Fellow Atarian here, on the flight home from an Atari meeting in Germany.

Can have a look on Monday.

Which emulator are you using ?

 

[MarkC426]

Hatari.....
Got rid of my computer decades ago, but still have all the games on 3.5" floppies, which I re-discovered recently when sorting the loft.
Have been looking on Ebay, but always a bit dubious on condition of machines, so gave the emulator a go.
Works great, just trying to figure out how to access the Atari disks......🤯

Wow, didn't know they still had events for Atari ST....

 

[Amethyst1]

diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk5

mounts all “readable” (to OS X) volumes on the given disk. Type diskutil list to find the device name for your USB floppy drive and substitute it for /dev/disk5.

If the command fails due to insufficient permissions, prefix it with sudo.

But this won’t solve your problem of making an empty drive or “unreadable” disk appear on the desktop — because only mounted volumes appear on the desktop and empty drives or “unreadable” volumes can’t be mounted.

 

[Lastic]

Hatari.....
Got rid of my computer decades ago, but still have all the games on 3.5" floppies, which I re-discovered recently when sorting the loft.
Have been looking on Ebay, but always a bit dubious on condition of machines, so gave the emulator a go.
Works great, just trying to figure out how to access the Atari disks......🤯

Wow, didn't know they still had events for Atari ST....

Well it's 8 bit Atari but ST's/Falcon are also present

Fujiama Party

atarixle.ddns.net

Still in the progress of unpacking so I'll get back to you on Monday.

 

[MarkC426]

Had another play today.
Connecting the floppy drive, shows in Disk Utility, shows in Terminal.

If I insert a Dos disk, it is selectable in Hatari.
Remove the disk and the drive disappears......

However (with no disk inserted) the drive 'disk1' still shows in Hatari under the dev folder.

 

[Amethyst1]

However (with no disk inserted) the drive 'disk1' still shows in Hatari under the dev folder.

The device node is present as long as the device is connected.

 

[DearthnVader]

Had another play today.
Connecting the floppy drive, shows in Disk Utility, shows in Terminal.

If I insert a Dos disk, it is selectable in Hatari.
Remove the disk and the drive disappears......

However (with no disk inserted) the drive 'disk1' still shows in Hatari under the dev folder.

View attachment 2057333 View attachment 2057334 View attachment 2057335

I think Hatari is looking for a disk image, not a raw disk here?

 

[MarkC426]

I think Hatari is looking for a disk image, not a raw disk here?

You might be correct.....I think I am coming to the end of this journey....
(that's what happens when you start sorting old stuff out.....major distraction)
You can download TOS files, but I don't trust DL stuff.
I have them on physical disk, so prefer to use them, unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any way to read them.

 

[Amethyst1]

I have them on physical disk, so prefer to use them, unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any way to read them.

Creating a disk image of a physical disk is as simple as typing sudo dd if=/dev/disk1 of=image.dsk in Terminal.

This assumes the floppy drive can read the disks and there’s nothing “weird” on them (a sector-based copy protection or something like that) which might throw off the procedure.

Disclaimer: I have no experience with Atari-formatted floppies.

 

[MarkC426]

Creating a disk image of a physical disk is as simple as typing sudo dd if=/dev/disk1 of=image.dsk in Terminal.

This assumes the floppy drive can read the disks and there’s nothing “weird” on them (a sector-based copy protection or something like that) which might throw off the procedure.

Disclaimer: I have no experience with Atari-formatted floppies.

This is good to know.
But the disks/floppy drive do not show/mount if it's an Atari disk, so another dead end unfortunately....🤨

Ideally need a Mac app which can read Atari disk format, so I can copy to Mac drive.

 

[Amethyst1]

But the disks/floppy drive do not show/mount if it's an Atari disk, so another dead end unfortunately....🤨

The dd command addresses the entire drive so the format of the floppies or whether they’re mounted shouldn’t matter.

 

[MarkC426]

Creating a disk image of a physical disk is as simple as typing sudo dd if=/dev/disk1 of=image.dsk in Terminal.

Sorry I didn't read this properly...
Does the above create a disk image OF the floppy disk on my Mac?

Tried the above, no joy.

 

[Amethyst1]

Does the above create a disk image OF the floppy disk on my Mac?

It should, yep. I’ll try this myself later.

Tried the above, no joy.

What happened?

 

[MarkC426]

It only shows as the usb drive in DU, no media showing (Atari disk), but the drive is listed in Terminal.
Ran the command and it shows as 0 bytes read/copied, floppy constantly accessing, but nothing happening.

I tried a dos disk, same result.
Also tried it from DU, create image.

Will have a look again and take screenshot next time......😬

 

[DearthnVader]

It only shows as the usb drive in DU, no media showing (Atari disk), but the drive is listed in Terminal.
Ran the command and it shows as 0 bytes read/copied, floppy constantly accessing, but nothing happening.

I tried a dos disk, same result.
Also tried it from DU, create image.

Will have a look again and take screenshot next time......😬

Insert the Atari disk into the floppy drive and from the terminal:

diskutil list

Upload the result.

 

[Amethyst1]

Tried the above, no joy.

I've just tried this with a 1.44 MB DOS-formatted floppy. I had to unmount it first (sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1 - but this won't be necessary if OS X can't read the format), then sudo dd if=/dev/disk1 of=floppy.img produced a 1,474,560-byte image just fine. Since OS X can read FAT12, I can mount the image by double-clicking on it.

 

[Lastic]

Not sure how if Hatari can mount a RAW img file since I'm guessing it's expecting an .ST or .MSA file

Converting floppy image from IMD to ST formats?

My friend recently passed along a couple of disk images from an ST that I am trying to run in an emulator. I don't have access to the original floppies or any ST hardware. They provided me with four copies: 1. CopyIIPC Deluxe Option Board image with an IMG extension 2. Imagedisk image with an IMD...

forums.atariage.com

There are 2 problems when using an USB floppy with Atari formatted diskettes

Not all USB floppies are able to read the format
second if the Atari formatted disk use a higher total of sectors they are unreadable to the USB floppy.

The non-OSx way when you have ,a capable to read Atari floppy-disks, USB diskdrive is Windows XP and this tool to image your floppies to .ST or .MSA which can be read by Hatari or any other ST Emulator.

Floppy Image program

Floppy imaging & file transfer program description, DL

atari.8bitchip.info

Looks like all the disk imaging tools are Windows , here is another one that I found

GitHub - ChrisBertrandDotNet/ST-Recover: ST Recover can read Atari ST floppy disks on a PC under Windows

ST Recover can read Atari ST floppy disks on a PC under Windows - ChrisBertrandDotNet/ST-Recover

github.com

I actually bought an old Thinkpad with an internal floppy-drive to be able to use the above tools.

You might be able to use Virtual PC and run an emulated Windows in order to use these tools.

There is an Arduino-based floppy controller which would allow any floppy-drive to read the formats but the software is either Linux or Windows.

GitHub - RobSmithDev/ArduinoFloppyDiskReader: DrawBridge aka Arduino Amiga Floppy Disk Reader/Writer - Hardware and software interface for accessing Amiga disks (read/write ADF and SCP) on non-Amiga hardware

DrawBridge aka Arduino Amiga Floppy Disk Reader/Writer - Hardware and software interface for accessing Amiga disks (read/write ADF and SCP) on non-Amiga hardware - RobSmithDev/ArduinoFloppyDiskReader

github.com

A good collection of .ST images and .MSA is TOSEC as explained here

For games specifically there is this one

ROMs Atari ST - Atari ST - Games - [ST] - Planet Emulation

Retrogaming, émulateurs et téléchargement de ROMs. Les jeux vidéo ont aussi leur histoire !

www.planetemu.net

 

[MarkC426]

Insert the Atari disk into the floppy drive and from the terminal:

diskutil list

Upload the result.

With the Atari disk in I get this in Terminal, the image file is created but zero bytes



Tried to create an image from DU, with the Dos disk and it says repair the disk, then I get this message

 

[DearthnVader]

With the Atari disk in I get this in Terminal, the image file is created but zero bytes

View attachment 2058988

Tried to create an image from DU, with the Dos disk and it says repair the disk, then I get this message

View attachment 2058987

Not all USB floppies are able to read the format
second if the Atari formatted disk use a higher total of sectors they are unreadable to the USB floppy.

The non-OSx way when you have ,a capable to read Atari floppy-disks, USB diskdrive is Windows XP and this tool to image your floppies to .ST or .MSA which can be read by Hatari or any other ST Emulator.

Likely it can't read the disk, and it would likely not do you any good to create a dd image anyway as @Lastic points out above.

You're probably going to need a tool to create .ST or .MSA images. Hope your USB floppy will work too!

 

[MarkC426]

I think I am calling it a day on this now, it's all too much of a faff.
Even if/when I could get the disk to read, there is no saying Hatari will accept it.....

May look into getting an ST off eBay, just for the nostalgia.....🎮

 

[MarkC426]

I decided to try a DL from a 'reputable site' (from what I researched).....😬
Atarimania seem to only have content from original ST disks.

Game loads and runs great in Hatari, with sound, music and save games working.....😁
And as I actually have this game in physical format, I don't feel guilty.
But then Atari is abondonware.



With additional research into ACTUAL Atari ST machines, it's just too complicated (with the age) with connections to modern equipment, either TV or monitor, and poor output on a hi-rez display (ST was only 320x200px).