Spectrum Computing

Sorry if this isn't the right forum, I was considering how to get data off 3.5 inch floppy disks from the MGT +D system.
I still have the original hardware. I also have a USB floppy drive for my PC.
Thanks,
Louise

Try SAMdisk. It allows a PC to make readable images of disks in all sorts of formats. You can then read them in any emulator that allows +D virtually.

I have images somewhere of all my old disks from the +D

A standard USB-floppy probably won’t do, as it doesn’t give low-level enough access to the disk (as far as I understand).

Instead I use a Greaseweazel with an old PC internal floppy drive and it works well for reading (and writing) +D disks (and many others, SAM Coupé, Amiga, DOS, etc. so it’s a handy tool to have around).

It don’t think samdisk will work with Greaseweazel, (but it’s great if you have an internal floppy drive in your PC already). The command line software is well documented and pleasant to use though.

Neil RMC’s floppy cleaning jigs are another handy thing to have around too!

Annoyingly I don't have a floppy drive connector on my motherboard (Rog Strix B450-F), or on my ancient laptop that I really keep for legacy things (HP Pavillion dv6700 - only floppy drive option there is via PCMCIA card I believe).

I could use a greaseweasel as the +D drive is a plain old Shuggart 3.5" with cable attached internally and a PSU power block. I think that might be the way to go.

That’s should work well. You can use either a “twisted” PC style cable (I think) and the Greaseweazel will see it as drive A. Or (as I’ve been doing) a straight-through cable and Greaseweazel will see it as Shugart-style Drive 0. In any case feel free to shout if you get stuck!

If the drive is jumpered to be drive B (or 1) that’s fine, Greaseweasel can access it anyway (via command line arguments etc)

Spectaculator and RealSpec emulator, can read real +D floppies.
Windows XP and the fdrawcmd driver are required, but actually it works on win 7 as well.
Latest version of RealSpec has read/write support for several important Spectrum real disk formats (+D/MGT, TRD, Opus, Disciple, MB02+, etc) under Win XP/7, except for the +3 format, which is read only for now and requires an old DOS version of the emulator to work properly.
viewtopic.php?p=114948&hilit=RealSpec#p114948
In both cases you need an internal floppy drive directly connected to the PC mb, to achieve successful low level communication with fd controller, so usb drives will not work.
I tested both emulators long time ago, RealSpec with my old Toshiba Portege 7010CT laptop in DOS environment, also both of them on my other PC retro setup with win XP/7 and +D format works just fine with full read/write support.
So, if you don't have greaseweazle, this is another way to backup real floppies or vice versa, to write some of the disk images in the mentioned formats to diskettes and use them on real Spectrum with some of those disk interfaces.

flatduckrecords wrote: ↑Sat Jul 29, 2023 6:51 pm A standard USB-floppy probably won’t do, as it doesn’t give low-level enough access to the disk (as far as I understand).

afai understand and read an UBS drive is a 9sector per track device while it should be 10 per track.
i am not sure since format is a software matter, but modern tech has it own flows