Convert .imd to .scp files?

[SomeGuy]

So, it seems that, without some knowledgeable manipulation, the .imd files are not directly compatible with the SuperCard Pro...yet. I have hope in Jim Drew that he can make his SuperCard Pro read & write ANYTHING!

ImageDisk is a very popular format. It can archive non-copy protected disks that were written using typical NEC/WD/Intel floppy microcontrollers. This includes support for different sectors per track, 128/256/512 and 1024 byte sectors, and both FM and MFM encoding when using a controller that supports both. It is regularly used for archiving many CP/M, Unix, and oddball MS-DOS formats. Although obviously it can't touch anything that uses GCR encoding, like the Apple II.

I should also point out that I tried this route also. HxC software DOES say it supports .imd files.

I had tried v2.0.26.0 myself not that long ago for something. Its user interface is horrible. Normally you just "load" and then "export" images, but I could never get it to create a usable SCP or KF image for me either. Part of the problem, I think, is that it has no way to specify the target drive type (300/360 RPM, 48/96TPI, etc).

However, there are a HUGE number of options for which to WRITE to a disk with these .imd images as source files. I've gone through a myrad of iterations here, but it seems that with ImageDisk, you have to get all of the settings just right, to match your hardware, tracks, sides, kbps settings, and on and on.

Normally the only thing you should need to specify is the Double Step option. On a 48TPI/360K drive this will always be "off". (It has no way to know if you REALLY want to write to just the first 40 tracks of 96TPI drive or every other track)

If the image was recorded using 300KBPS (such as a 360K disk in a 1.2mb drive) then would also need to set the data rate to 250KBPS.

The above images were written at 250KBPS. (You can use the imagdisk viewer to see this).

Are you using a "360K" drive to write these images? Please be aware that a 1.2MB/96TPI drive CAN NOT reliably write 360K/48TPI disks! They will almost never be readable in a proper 360K/48TPI drive.

That is the one tricky part about writing 5.25 disk media, and even the SuperCard pro can not overcome this physical drive limitation.

Personally, I always use 360K drives for reading/writing unless I run in to a disk that is clearly high or quad density.

I should point out that once you have a disk successfully written, I have no idea how you would access it in a UnixPC. Normally on Unix you have to go through a pile of rigmarole to mount the file system, but in some cases unix disks don't have a file system and you are intended to concatinate the output of the raw device and run it through the TAPE archiver.