Ancient problem on an Ancient console

I hope there's someone out there who knows the solution to my proble.

Back in the late 90's (1996 to be exact) I bought a SUPER UFO PRO 8 game copier/loader for my SNES, I still didn't have a pc back then.

My problem is, I want to back-up my old game saves from the copier/loader onto my pc so I can archive them later & to also use them on ZSNES, coz I'm kinda fed up on re-playing some of those old relics of gaming history again just to have an "exact copy" of whatever data I had on my Snes copier/loader.

The common way to do this would be to manually copy the files on my diskette onto my pc, but as soon as I hit copy an error message appears saying that the file is not recognized by windows. Searching on the net, I learned that 2 reasons are responsible for this, (1) back in the days my copier/loader was created, the format common to hard drives was FAT32 & since my HD's NTFS my save files are'nt compatible. (2) also, back then people used Windows95 & it seems that damn OS was the only thing capable of "understanding" with my copier/loader's save file system, until recently.

I found a tool on the net called ucon64 that can convert my save .Ram files to .SAV, the file system common to most emulators, the problem is, it's command line based!! Damn, & me having little knowledge on using command line arguments. Then it seems a solution to my problem was almost in sight coz it so happens there is a frontend for ucon64 called u-fox which could have been a great help 'cept it did'nt have what I needed. Sure it can convert ROM files into something my copier/loader can understand but not vice versa, the damn guys who made u-fox forgot to put in commands that will convert data from a copier for use on a emulator! The function's still there in ucon64 but it's still in command line form.

Is there anyone out there who can help???

 

I just wanted to add that I do know what commands are necessary to run the convertion (since ucon64 comes with a readme of all the commands you use on it), my only problem is that I don't know the command line argument that will tell the program that my file is on my disk in DRIVE A:

 

Pardon me I didn't quite get that what's "/?"

 

I got a foolow-up question, my snes copier/loader formats blank diskettes into a 1.6 format as upposed to windows' 1.4 format could that have something to do with my problem?

 

Dang! :-\

 

Yup,

You're talking about the Super Magicom copier/loader, we didn't have those here, Sigh :-\

 

a 1.44 drive will not normally read 1.6 format. in order to read 1.6 format, you need a special driver loaded. This driver, i will have to look up, wish me luck. because it is a command line driver for MS-DOS back in the days.

BTW. i suspect your floppy is 1.72 instead of 1.6, because 1.6 is a Microsoft format. If you remember windows 95 installation diskette, they are formated by microsoft at 1.6. But 1.72 is a format by IBM for higher density. 1.72 need the specific driver to read. 1.6 shouldn't need that.

btw. FAT, FAT32, and NTFS. They are still the most common file system (probably except FAT), so don't group FAT32 as ancient or history file format.

OK. YOU"RE LUCKY. I FOUND IT!
The program I used back then is called FDFORMAT, it come with a driver called FDREAD. If you load this driver, you'll be able to read your disk.

1.6 or 1.72 3.55 floppy is a very popular format back then, fdformat is one of the most popular utility for it.

Here's the link to download the software.
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/diskutil/fdfrm18.zip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fdformat <- a link to know more about the history of fdformat.

good luck

PS. i just found this windows version called MAXI DISK, not sure if this will be compatible even though is windows, because it support up to windows ME. I never try using this before.
http://www.herne.com/mdisk1.htm

 

Dude you misunderstood what I said was ancient was my SNES & my copier/loader, not the file format system.

Anyway I'll go through the material you gave & I'll post back if all goes well.

Damn Micosoft, if their older os versions can read different file formats why the hell did they make their newer once can't!! :'(

 

yes. 1.6 is not a standard floppy format. Microsoft created this format for distribution only and also to prevent piracy of their software. But of course, it is not a problem now since that's an old format. Almost anyone can pirate something like this nowaday.

but all you need is a 1.44 floppy drive to read both 1.6 or 1.72 format with the right driver(FDREAD can). If you have something by 2M, another format that can format your normal 1.44 DS HD floppy to a 2.0M floppy but with specific driver also. Only need 1.44 floppy disk drive.

 

Finally! thanx Jacoblam365! I finally I got my machine reading my copier/loader saves now I can archive them!

Thanx a bundle