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Full Discussion: Reading old Unix files on windows pc
Special Forums Windows & DOS: Issues & Discussions Reading old Unix files on windows pc Post 302638625 by methyl on Thursday 10th of May 2012 12:53:16 PM
Old 05-10-2012
Have you got the original computer? Does it still work?

There were several types of 5.25" floppy disc with variation in recording density and number of sides. Within this there were many alternative disc formats (including optional IBM PC format on some versions of SVR3).

You need to know absolutely everything about how these discs were written (hardware and software) to stand a chance of reading them back. Most of the time you will need the original computer and some timeless file transfer software like "kermit" or "ftp". Unless these are plain text files, there is no guarantee that Windows will be able to process them.

Magnetic media are not permanent and after 15-20 years stored in ideal conditions you will be lucky to read them.
If you need to test an ancient floppy drive, use an expendable blank disc rather than something irreplacable.

If the files are very important (and you have the funds) it may well be safer to employ a specialist data recovery outfit.

(Posts crossed. Implication that the original computer is available and that the discs are newer than 15-20 years).
Last edited by methyl; 05-10-2012 at 05:14 PM..
 

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

dares

DARES(1)																  DARES(1)

NAME

       dares - rescue files from damaged CDs and DVDs

SYNOPSIS

       dares -i image -s path [-h2i h2i_file] [-a] [-m] [-llogfile]
       dares-qt [-i image] [-s path] [-h2i h2i_file] [-a] [-m] [-llogfile]

DESCRIPTION

       Dares  scans  a	CD/DVD image or a CD/DVD and tries to find files. It does not depend on filesystem information, but instead uses the Magic
       library to identify files. Doing it this way Dares can recover files even when the filesystem (ISO-9660 or UDF) on the disc is damaged  and
       cannot be mounted anymore.

       Dares can use H2cdimage (ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2cdimage.zip) files to rescue data from heavily damaged optical discs.

OPTIONS

       -i     CD/DVD image file or device.

       -s     Directory where the rescued  files shall be stored.

       -h2i   Optional h2i file for the CD/DVD image.

       -a     Store all found files without any user interaction.

       -m     Use Mime types instead of a description.	-l Logfile (default: dares.log)

AUTHOR

       dares was written by Oliver Diedrich <odi@ct.heise.de>.

       This manual page was written by Michael Hanke <michael.hanke@gmail.com>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).

Michael Hanke							   Oktober 2005 							  DARES(1)
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