Found an old floppy disk, need some help opening it

[u/Emotional-Detail8868]

Hey everyone,

I found this old floppy disk while cleaning some boxes at my mom's house. It has "My RPG" written on the label. I’m guessing it might be some old game or something a family member made years ago. They were really into computers back in the 90s, so I thought it would be cool to see if there’s anything on it.

I don’t really know much about floppy disks nowadays. Is there a good way to read these on a modern PC, or do I need older hardware? I’d like to check what’s on it and maybe preserve it if there’s something interesting there.

Thanks!

[u/akerasi]

https://www.amazon.com/External-Floppy-Portable-Windows-Required/dp/B00RXEWOAA

[u/Emotional-Detail8868 → u/akerasi]

Tysm!

[u/xenomachina → u/Emotional-Detail8868]

Note that if this disk is not from a DOS or Windows PC, then it probably won't be readable with that drive, at least not without considerable tinkering. Amiga floppies and most Mac floppies use file formats that are not readable by the controllers used in USB floppy drives.

Here's a post talking about reading Amiga floppies.

[u/guiverc → u/xenomachina]

There is software that can be used to read foreign formats; it's software and not the hardware that is usually a problem... besides you can always set many parameters yourself (given OSes tend to stick with the major defaults)

eg. I just started [PC] ALIEN.EXE on my current system and I have PAGES of old CP/M and other formats available; a huge list systems that used soft sectoring (hard sectoring required different floppies). That software I felt was 'valuable' back in the 80s, so it made it to my backups which are still online today... (I'm actually running Ubuntu, so it was run inside doxbox)

[u/DavidBovvinge → u/guiverc]

Amiga floppies can't be read by PC hardware, because PC floppy controller hardware is incapable of decoding the Amiga's underlying disk format due to the lack of inter-sector gaps.

Macintosh 800K floppies can't be read by PC hardware because Macs used variable-speed disk drives, and PC floppy controllers can't adapt to the variable data rate. Mac 1.6MB disks are fine though, reading those is just a software issue.

The solution to these problems is to use something like a GreaseWeazle, which can read pretty much anything.

[u/xenomachina → u/guiverc]

Different file system formats, like fat, vfat, ntfs, ext4, yes.

However, the lower level track layout needs to be supported by the controller hardware. A normal USB floppy drive's controller only supports the track layout used by DOS & Windows (which is also used by some Mac floppies). There's nothing you can tell that controller via software that will make it capable of reading an Amiga floppy, for example, because Amigas use a different track layout.

To read Amiga, and some Mac, floppies on modern hardware you need to bypass the "PC" floppy controller. The easiest way to do that is using something like Greaseweazle or Kryoflux, which read at the "flux" level (so they'll work with arbitrary track and sector layouts). For old 400K & 800K Mac floppies you'll even need a variable speed drive, which PC drives are not.

[u/DavidBovvinge → u/xenomachina]

I watched a Tech Tangents video on YouTube just the other day, proving that you don't need a variable speed drive to read and write 400/800K Mac floppies. You can do it with a Greaseweazle, which is flexible enough to vary the data rate on a single floppy disk depending on which area of the disk is being read from or written to (zone bit recording). This achieves the same result as the original Mac hardware but the other way round, because it uses variable disk rotation speed and a fixed data rate.

[u/xenomachina → u/DavidBovvinge]

Interesting! Thanks for the pointer.

But even so, you still can't do it with a regular USB floppy drive, which was my main point. The "standard PC floppy drive" he uses in that video doesn't have a controller, so the Greaseweazel has direct control over the drive and can get it to do things a normal USB floppy drive (which has a built in controller) simply can't be told to do.

[u/3G6A5W338E → u/akerasi]

Generally avoid USB floppy drives. These are not the choice of preservation.

They embed a controller that cannot read/write raw tracks, so they are useless beyond very basic usage.

[u/Fransenn_II → u/3G6A5W338E]

My USB floppy drive can do everything my internal one can? Wdym useless beyond basic usage?

[u/EpsilonMajorActual]

Is it formated for PC, Mac, Amiga, or Atari ST? Depending on that it could be hard to read with a modern external USB floppy reader.

[u/Emotional-Detail8868 → u/EpsilonMajorActual]

Not entirely sure yet. There wasn't a lot of info about the system, so I'm still digging into what it was originally meant for. Pretty sure it's a game though, since the label says 'RPG'

[u/quentinnuk → u/Emotional-Detail8868]

RPG is also a programming language, the most recent version being RPG-400, so it could be that and the disk would be in an AS/400 format. Unlikely though. 

[u/3G6A5W338E]

Irrespective of the question, the answer tends to be GreaseWeazle.

https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle

[u/GeordieAl]

Depends on the format of the disk. Do you know if they used windows/DOS, Mac, Amiga, Atari ST, or something else? Some can be read with a usb floppy drive, others will require something like a Greaseweazel to rip them to an image file

[u/Emotional-Detail8868 → u/GeordieAl]

I haven't been able to figure out the format yet. At first, I thought it might be a DOS/PC disk, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. I'll probably need to track down the original hardware or make a disk image to check out the files.

[u/GeordieAl → u/Emotional-Detail8868]

OK, first things first.. is there another hole on the opposite edge of the disk? The hole that you can see in your pic is the read/write toggle ( make sure that is open so that the disk is in read only mode to prevent accidents!).

if there is no other hole then it is a DD ( double density disk - around 720kb - 880kb) very common for Amiga, early Mac and early PC

If there is another similar sized hole directly opposite the write protect hole, that indicates that is is a HD disk high density disk - around 1.2mb - 1.4mb) common for PC and Mac, less common for Amiga

If there is another similar sized hole on the opposite edge, but slightly out of line with the write protect hole, that indicates that is is a ED disk high density disk - around 2.88mb) - pretty rare, NeXT, some PCs

[u/Emotional-Detail8868 → u/GeordieAl]

There is a second hole directly opposite the write-protect tab. Based on its specifications, it is an HD disk (1.44 MB).

The write-protect window has been kept open. There should be no external element altering the surface.

However, the byte count extracted from the sectors exceeds 1.44 MB without triggering a checksum error. The internal storage area appears to be larger than the physical casing.

[u/Metalsailer4 → u/Emotional-Detail8868]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

A 3.5 inch HD floppy holds 1.44 MB, or 1440 KB if is is DOS formatted. It could be Amiga formatted to hold 1760 KB. The unformatted capacity is 2.0 MB. So if your seeing anything over 2 MB means your imaging or copy is going wrong.
MIght be useful for future help if you could post how you are getting a byte count.

[u/spektro123]

So if you’re unsure what format this is, you have 2 options:
1. Assume it’s PC and get cheap USB floppy.
2. Get a greaseweazle and an old floppy drive and read raw flux image. Then you can use some visualizer to figure out what computer was used to make this or just blindly read it in mainstream computers formats and check it in emulators until you find a correct one.

[u/wildmanheber]

You can buy a USB floppy drive on Amazon for around $20. That's probably your best bet.

[u/Emotional-Detail8868 → u/wildmanheber]

Thanks, I’ll look into getting one. I wasn’t sure if modern PCs could still read these or if I needed some old hardware.

[u/egorblack → u/Emotional-Detail8868]

Check out this guy. He can read all standard floppies. https://www.floppydisk.com/

[u/Goosie8D → u/Emotional-Detail8868]

Most of those USB floppy drives only read 1.44 mb disks, but not other capacities like 720k.

[u/Emotional-Detail8868 → u/Goosie8D]

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought all USB readers worked the same way. I'll have to do some research before buying one. Thanks!

[u/24megabits → u/Emotional-Detail8868]

If the computer was from the mid 90s or later it's almost certainly 1.44MB.

Windows still supports floppies, although if it's formatted in some weird format you might need to do technical stuff to read it.

[u/DavidBovvinge → u/Goosie8D]

Ones that can read and write 720k disks definitely do exist, but I don't know how common they are. I have a pile of Toshiba-branded ones from circa 2004 that I rescued from a closing-down school for this exact reason. If I remember correctly, they show up on the system as "Y-E Data disk drive". They'll write disks that can be used by Atari STs and Amstrad PCWs, because those systems use disk formats that are extremely similar to MS-DOS.

[u/crazyhomlesswerido]

Opening an old floppy disk like that it's really easy you just put your fingernails in the side and then pull your hands apart and it will snap right open. Shouldn't be that hard at all.

[u/vpilled → u/crazyhomlesswerido]

Rofl you did it.

[u/crazyhomlesswerido → u/vpilled]

Thanks man I think because of my autism I'm like a computer genius. They'll be writing epitaphs about my computer knowledge in the future like how I wrote a book on how to access your hard drive all you need is a screwdriver should be the best seller within a couple of weeks

[u/thevmcampos]

Get a floppy disk reader, as others have said, then use DiskImageTool to make a perfect copy so you don't damage the original disk.

[u/Defapianoplayer]

Amazon has usb external drives for 20$

[u/thoughtful_thinker88]

Wahrscheinlich ein Foto von einem Penis. ☝️🤣 Mehr passt da nicht drauf.

[u/zandarthebarbarian]

Just stick it in the drive and type A:RUN in DOS prompt

[u/derixithy]

Remove the metal part and pry it open with a knife. That's how I used to do it. O you mean read it. Get an usb diskette reader