29 May
2000
29 May
'00
6:26 p.m.
On Sun, 28 May 2000, Mark wrote:
I would like to be proved wrong, but there is no way
to account for every
possible strange thing that could be done in terms of custom formats,
copy-protection etc., at least in a high level file format that doesn't just
sample the bits coming from the disk.
Well, if this is to be a universal standard (which is what I'd like to at
least get close to accomplishing) then we must.
It would be possible to construct a device for
archiving disks at a very low
level. I guess this would be similar to commercial floppy disk duplicators,
except writing data to a file instead of another floppy. The bit stream from
the disk would be sampled at a very high rate to allow for various tricks
that could be done. Or by modifying a floppy drive, the analogue signal from
It would be tough to know where valid data actually resides on the disk.
Such a low-level dump of raw data would at least
preserve all (or almost all)
information on the disk. Successfully writing an exact duplicate back to
another floppy would depend on the capabilities of your disk controller.
Still, such as image file could be easily supported by emulators. Also bad
sectors would be preserved, meaning that recovery of most of the data from
them would be possible.
Such a utility would have to be written for each particular machine since
universal hardware that could accomodate all the different formats does
not seem feasible.
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
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