Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-04 Thread Eric Smith
On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 11:31 PM, Mark J. Blair  wrote:
> If you want raw data from an IMD file in some order other than the physical 
> ordering on the original media, my Python package that I linked to previously 
> may be helpful. It may also require some coding, but the supplied classes 
> make it pretty easy for somebody with Python familiarity to access the 
> contents of arbitrary sectors in a .IMD file.

Excellent timing for your message. I was just thinking about Python
code to access imd files, and that I might have to spend some time
writing such, and there it is. It's like Christmas! Woo-hoo!


Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-04 Thread Mark J. Blair
If you want raw data from an IMD file in some order other than the physical 
ordering on the original media, my Python package that I linked to previously 
may be helpful. It may also require some coding, but the supplied classes make 
it pretty easy for somebody with Python familiarity to access the contents of 
arbitrary sectors in a .IMD file.

Even without Python programming experience, the command-line utility that comes 
with the package makes it easy to take a .IMD file, remove sector interleave so 
that the physical and logical sector ordering are the same, and then write out 
a new .IMD file to be processed by any other .IMD-aware programs. For example, 
to convert "foo.imd" to a new file "bar.imd" with no sector interleave:

  imdutil.py --load foo.imd --interleave 0 --save bar.imd

It doesn't understand any filesystems - yet - but it may still be helpful. 
Documentation is admittedly lacking... the command-line utility has built-in 
help which can be accessed by the typical -h or --help arguments, and the 
classes have embedded docstrings which (savvy Python folks) can access with 
pydoc. And it has a unit test suite which I think tests it all out with 
reasonable thoroughness.

Here's the --help output from the included utility script, to give y'all an 
idea of what it does:


~% imdutil.py -h
usage: imdutil.py [-h] [-l FILENAME] [-s FILENAME] [-S] [-D] [-i SKIP]
  [-k SECTOR_NUM] [-u C.H.S] [-U]

ImageDisk (.IMD) utility version 1.0.0a1
  Copyright (C) 2016 Mark J. Blair, released under GPLv3
  https://github.com/NF6X/pyImageDisk
  https://github.com/NF6X/pyImageDisk

Arguments are processed in the order encountered, with cumulative effects
upon the disk image buffer. The disk image buffer is discarded at program
exit. Arguments may be abbreviated.

optional arguments:
  -h, --helpshow this help message and exit
  -l FILENAME, --load FILENAME
Load disk image buffer from file, replacing previous
buffer contents.
  -s FILENAME, --save FILENAME
Save disk image buffer to file.
  -S, --summary Print summary of image contents.
  -D, --details Print detailed description of image contents.
  -i SKIP, --interleave SKIP
Interleave sectors with specified skip factor.
  -k SECTOR_NUM, --skew SECTOR_NUM
Rotate sector order to place sectors with specified
sector number after index pulse.
  -u C.H.S, --dumpsector C.H.S
Print hexadecimal dump of sector. Specify the sector
in cylinder.head.sector format. Use physical cylinder
and head numbers, and logical sector number.
  -U, --dumpall Print hexadecimal dump of all sectors, in physical
order.

Example:
  imdutil.py --load mydisk.imd --summary



-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/



Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-04 Thread Curious Marc
Yes, Fred is right, I assumed from your question that you wanted the raw binary 
data without the .imd sectoring info. To get the files back, you then need a 
way to mount that binary image on your target machine or emulator so it can 
read the file system. What is the target machine? What file system is on the 
disk?
Marc

Sent from my iPad

On Feb 4, 2016, at 12:29 PM, Fred Cisin  wrote:

>> > Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and > 
>> > recover the data?
> [...]
> curiousmarc3 seems to assume that you want a file containing the bytes on the 
> disk in the order that they are on the disk (BTW, sectors are not always in 
> consecutive order, and files can be fragmented all over a disk), whereas I am 
> assuming that you want a bunch of separate files, each of which contains the 
> bytes that were in a file on the original disk, and rearranged into the 
> sequence that they were within those files on the 
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com


Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-04 Thread Tony Nicholson
[Please excuse the lack of threading - I read cctalk in digest form.]

On Wed, 3 Feb 2016, Jim Simpson wrote:

> Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and recover
> the data?  I've found a wealth of BigBoard & BigBoard II data (and lots of
> other stuff too) on many different sites, all saved in .IMD format.  Is it
> possible to read these files and recover the data instead of writing a
> floppy disk with DiskImage?

Jim (and other cctalkers),

Grab a copy of the SIMH Altairz80 simulator from
http://schorn.ch/altair.html and the zip file of my cpmplus for the
CompuPro Disk1 controller from the Other Operating systems link at
http://schorn.ch/altair_5.php

This supports IMD disks in BB II 1.4Mb (1024byte x 9 sector) format.  You
can attach the IMD file and use the "W" command to extract files to the
host operating system -

mini:cpmplus tony$ altairz80 cpm3bk

Altair 8800 (Z80) simulator V4.0-0 Betagit commit id: 4ff1e317

LDRBIOS for SIMH System - V3.2-Y2K 01-AUG-2008
DISK1 8" boot floppy

CPMLDR3 - CP/M V3.0 Loader
Copyright (C) 1982, Digital Research

 BNKBIOS3 SPR  FA00  0600
 BNKBIOS3 SPR  C600  1A00
 RESBDOS3 SPR  F400  0600
 BNKBDOS3 SPR  9800  2E00

 61K TPA

CP/M Plus for SIMH System - V3.2-Y2K 06-AUG-2008
Banked memory
CCP loads from A: and reloads from bank 0
DISK2 dual 20Mb M20 winchesters (A-F)
DISK1 8" (I-L) [BB-II] floppies


A>SETDEF * A: [ORDER=(COM,SUB) DISPLAY UK]

Drive Search Path:
1st Drive- Default
2nd Drive- A:

Search Order - COM, SUB
Program Name Display - On
Date format used - UK

A>  
Simulation stopped, PC: 0FE8F (AND 02h)
sim> att disk1a3 ../s100/BB2-011.IMD
sim> go

A>l:

%FDDISK1 unit 3 is type BigBoard-II 1024x9 Read-Only
L>dir
L: BULLETIN : BYE  COM : CALL-JAN PQN : COMMANDS HLP : DIR  COM
L: ELAPSED  COM : HELP COM : HELP HLP : INFO : MAGAZINE HLP
L: MBOOTASM : NEWS : PAMSFEB1 0Q6 : PASSWORD COM : RBBS COM
L: TYPE COM : USERDISK CQT : WHATSNEW HLP : XYAM COM : XYAMHELP T
SYSTEM FILE(S) EXIST
L>w
A:WCOM

WRITE V-1.17 (01-Mar-08)  SIMH Interface V004
Usage: WRITE  [B|T]
Copy  to host environment. Default is text, B for binary, T for
Text

Examples
WRITE BDOS.MAC  copy BDOS.MAC as text file
WRITE PIP.COM B copy PIP.COM as binary file
WRITE PIP.COM   copy PIP.COM as binary file [.COM .REL .DAT imply B]
WRITE TEST.DAT Tcopy TEST.DAT as text file
WRITE *.COM copy all files matching *.COM as binary files
WRITE SRC/BDOS.MAC  copy BDOS.MAC to directory SRC as a text file
WRITE COM/*.COM B   copy *.COM to directory COM as binary files

L>w type.com b
A:WCOM

WRITE V-1.17 (01-Mar-08)  SIMH Interface V004
Write "TYPE.COM" to "TYPE.COM".
3.5kB written (Binary).

If you need to support other CP/M disk formats, the BIOS source files and
submit files to put them together are in the A1: directory on the hard disk
image.  There's also CP/M program to make IMD disk images natively under
CP/M-Plus in A3: (it will span the IMD file across multiple floppies if the
image file is too large). I used this to copy all my 8" floppies (including
BB II ones) to IMD images.

Tony

-- 
Tony Nicholson 


Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-04 Thread Fred Cisin
> Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and 
> recover the data?


"Data"??!?
Well, you already have the DATA, every last bit.
Maybe what you want is the INFORMATION, in the form of the FILES.

All too often, people will use "data" to describe the contents, which 
could be at MANY different levels.  And, of couse, some will be shocked, 
amazed, and offended that anybody could possibly interpret something so 
obvious in any way other than as they do.


From .IMD files, with appropriate additional software, it is possible to 
recreate a "clone" duplicate on a disk, a binary image file of all of the 
bytes on the disk (in the order that they appear on the track), 
as mentioned next:

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016, curiousma...@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, if you download the original imd, in the package there is a simple 
to use command line utility to do just that. Writing from memory, 
IMD2BIN.EXE or something like that.


OR, a copy of one or all of the sectors on the disk (with or without the 
"metadata" of the headers), the files from the disk (requires software 
that understands the filesystem), or the information within the data 
within the files (obvious with a glance at a Wordstar file without 
Wordstar, and grossly and horribly apparent trying to derive text from 
Weird, WordPervert, or any other "modern" word processor)


[And, of course, in situations OTHER than this one, one can not always 
look at the world as "files" consisting of a sequential stream of bytes.]



While it is, of course, obvious [to you] what you mean, you need to be 
aware that some of us have bizarre alternate interpretations of what it 
means to extract the "data" from a disk or disk image.


curiousmarc3 seems to assume that you want a file containing the bytes on 
the disk in the order that they are on the disk (BTW, sectors are not 
always in consecutive order, and files can be fragmented all over a disk), 
whereas I am assuming that you want a bunch of separate files, each of 
which contains the bytes that were in a file on the original disk, and 
rearranged into the sequence that they were within those files on the 
original disk.




From Data, we can derive Information.
From Information, we can derive Knowledge.

(That is the "DWI pyramid" of Information Science.)
Most of us have extended that to include:

From Knowledge, we can derive Enlightenment.  (literally thousands of

independently derived postulates)
A few of us have extended that to include that Data is derived from Chaos, 
and that Chaos is derived from Enlightenment.



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com


Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-04 Thread curiousmarc3
Yes, if you download the original imd, in the package there is a simple to use 
command line utility to do just that. Writing from memory, IMD2BIN.EXE or 
something like that.
Marc

> On Feb 3, 2016, at 4:56 PM, Jim Simpson  wrote:
> 
> Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and recover
> the data?  I've found a wealth of BigBoard & BigBoard II data (and lots of
> other stuff too) on many different sites, all saved in .IMD format.  Is it
> possible to read these files and recover the data instead of writing a
> floppy disk with DiskImage?
> 
> Thanks, Jim Simpson
> 
> 
> 
> 


Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-03 Thread Mark J. Blair
I've been developing Python code for dealing with .IMD files off and on. It's 
not complete by any stretch of imagination, but if you're comfortable with 
Python then you might be able to use it to do what you want:

https://github.com/NF6X/pyImageDisk

At this time, extracting meaningful data would require more coding. Using the 
provided classes to pull out raw sector data would be easy, but it does not yet 
have any understanding of filesystems. I do play to add support for at least 
some filesystems in the future, but at this time the filesystem code is just 
some nonfunctional skeleton classes that I'm still working on.

The provided command-line utility will at least reveal details about the low 
level format, such as sector sizes, interleave factors, use of different sector 
address marks (i.e., the use of DDAM marks on the directory track of some 
TRS-80 formats), or weird cylinder and head numbers in the headers. It'll also 
do hex dumps of the entire disk image or individual sectors. And it can change 
interleave factors and first sector after the index pulse if that might be 
helpful.


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/



Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-03 Thread Jason T
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 6:56 PM, Jim Simpson  wrote:
> Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and recover
> the data?  I've found a wealth of BigBoard & BigBoard II data (and lots of
> other stuff too) on many different sites, all saved in .IMD format.  Is it
> possible to read these files and recover the data instead of writing a
> floppy disk with DiskImage?

This tool is new to me but I'm looking forward to trying it out:

http://simonowen.com/samdisk/formats/

It claims to be able to convert between many formats, including
ImageDisk's IMD.  Might be worth a try.

j


Re: .IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-03 Thread Steven Hirsch

On Wed, 3 Feb 2016, Jim Simpson wrote:


Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and recover
the data?  I've found a wealth of BigBoard & BigBoard II data (and lots of
other stuff too) on many different sites, all saved in .IMD format.  Is it
possible to read these files and recover the data instead of writing a
floppy disk with DiskImage?


You can use the IMDU program (part of the ImageDisk package) to convert 
those files to a vanilla sector image.  From there, cpmtools is your 
friend for extracting the files.  IIRC, the BB used the same format as the 
Xerox 820 machines and they'll probably already be a useable diskdef.  If 
not, it's fairly straightforward to write one.




--


.IMD diskette image file recovery

2016-02-03 Thread Jim Simpson
Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and recover
the data?  I've found a wealth of BigBoard & BigBoard II data (and lots of
other stuff too) on many different sites, all saved in .IMD format.  Is it
possible to read these files and recover the data instead of writing a
floppy disk with DiskImage?

Thanks, Jim Simpson