My Amiga hardware has been inactive for lo these many years. Before I go to the trouble of resurrecting or replacing it, I'd like to make sure that I can get back the info I have archived on my floppies. I'd prefer not to have to acquire 20-year-old PC hardware in hopes of getting data off 30-year-old floppies. Are there any reliable and reasonably priced services that can do transfers offf old Amiga 3.5" disks?
Googling really only turns up one, RetroFloppy.
When I inquired of general drive-recovery companies, they were like "uh maybe we could dig up an Amiga drive". I didn't have high confidence in that route.
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dalek
- Australia
The best way is to do it yourself with any old PC floppy drive that you can scrounge up, and a "Greaseweazle":
https://github.com/keirf/Greaseweazle/w ... zle-Models
Paying anyone other than a hobbyist/friend will cost you a fortune.
https://github.com/keirf/Greaseweazle/w ... zle-Models
Paying anyone other than a hobbyist/friend will cost you a fortune.
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intric8
- Seattle, WA, USA
@max
If you are in the USA, and you're willing to ship let's say 10 or 20 disks you really want to pull the data from, I'd do it for you. If you pay for the shipping, I would pull the data off one disk at a time. It's a very slow process (about 5 minutes per disk if they are full) but it's not that big of a deal.
The question would be if you wanted disk images (maybe to try and use in an emulator), or simply the data files that you could use anywhere. Are the files text data? Imagery? If they are tied to specific Amiga software (e.g. spreadsheet), then ADFs are probably the way to go. If they are text, then I can very likely get what you want with the caveat that the formatting might get a little lost or garbled depending on things.
If you want to go down that route just to prove if your disks are even worth saving, I'd be happy to assist.
If you have hundreds of disks, then just pick a few as a proof of concept.
It would also help if I knew your system was 1.3, or 2.0+, as their text formatting changed a bit between the two sometimes.
If you are in the USA, and you're willing to ship let's say 10 or 20 disks you really want to pull the data from, I'd do it for you. If you pay for the shipping, I would pull the data off one disk at a time. It's a very slow process (about 5 minutes per disk if they are full) but it's not that big of a deal.
The question would be if you wanted disk images (maybe to try and use in an emulator), or simply the data files that you could use anywhere. Are the files text data? Imagery? If they are tied to specific Amiga software (e.g. spreadsheet), then ADFs are probably the way to go. If they are text, then I can very likely get what you want with the caveat that the formatting might get a little lost or garbled depending on things.
If you want to go down that route just to prove if your disks are even worth saving, I'd be happy to assist.
If you have hundreds of disks, then just pick a few as a proof of concept.
It would also help if I knew your system was 1.3, or 2.0+, as their text formatting changed a bit between the two sometimes.