07.010 How can I copy disks?
Description
This article is from the Apple II Csa2 FAQ, by Jeff Hurlburt with numerous contributions by others.
07.010 How can I copy disks?
Neither ProDOS nor DOS 3.3 includes a built-in Disk Copy command. So, to
copy diskettes you will need to use some kind of copy utility. The ProDOS
standard Utilities Disk includes a Disk Copy option. The DOS 3.3 System Master
disk includes a Disk Copy program named "COPYA".
A very good Disk Copy utility for 5.25" (DOS 3.3, ProDOS, ...) diskettes
is Disk Muncher. It is fast; and, the current version will automatically try to
copy 36 tracks (used on some diskettes) and it includes verification checks. A
good fast-copy utility for 3.5" diskettes is Diversi-Copy. The newer version of
the ProDOS Utilities may be adequate for copying many 3.5" diskettes, too. The
popular diskette utilities Copy II Plus and Locksmith include plain Disk Copy
options, too.
Most of the above will work with standard disk images on emulators.
However, Copy II Plus's regular DISK COPY will not work on emus (whereas,
Locksmith's Fast Copy seems to work fine).
If you are on a PC running Windows, an easy way to copy a .dsk, .nib, etc.
disk image file is to do a Right-click drag-and-drop of the file in the same
folder.
On a IIgs, the easiest way to copy ProDOS diskettes is on the usual Finder
desktop. You drag the icon of the disk you want to copy to the icon of a same-
size target disk.
The above options are fine for copying diskettes which are not copy
protected. COPYA and some other copiers which use the current DOS's RWTS
routines can get around some forms of protection via POKEs to DOS which turn
off checking of Address header bytes, checksums, etc.. Otherwise, a bit copier,
such as the ones included in Copy II Plus, Locksmith, and Essential Data
Duplicator, may get the job done. Using it's built-in parms library, Copy II
Plus can reliably make copies of many copy protected disks
.
If a lot of the software you need to copy is from MECC, a good try is to
get an MECC copy program by John Kielkopf named "meccopy". It makes deprotected
copies of many MECC diskettes.
You can find Disk Muncher, Copy II Plus, and other utilities mentioned
above on several archives as separate files, on disks in ShrinkIt whole-disk
(.sdk) form, and on emulator disk images (.dsk files). To download see links
in Csa21MAIN4 Q&A 001.
By: Streaming Wizard, Phil Beesley
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