Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to dump an Amiga floppy using a PC drive?

It's recommended to use the drive matching the floppy to dump. However, it is generally possible. A few attempts should be made with different drives in order to minimise read errors.

Moreover, dirty drive heads, incorrect head calibration, or other symptoms of a drive in bad shape are often the origin of read errors, or can even lead to the destruction of the floppy disk. It's strongly recommended to first make a few experiments with expendable media.

Which drive should I use in order to dump an Amiga HD floppy (Amiga 3000)?

We haven't tried this yet. Your best bet is an attempt using a PC HD drive.

Can Pauline be used to restore data to a floppy disk?

Restoring e.g. writing data from a dump to floppy can be tricky to achieve. If it's a floppy containing a copy-protection mechanism, it's probably a lot of work. Pauline can be used in "simulation" mode, meaning it's presenting itself like a virtual floppy drive connected to the original host computer (HFE file stream - experimental feature). If the host computer has access to another real floppy drive, it is thus possible to copy from the virtual floppy (Pauline) to the real floppy drive.

Is it possible to combine two partial dumps (two dumps of the same original floppy)?

Yes, but you need to shuffle some files. Pauline creates folders on the SD card for each new dump: "Dump Name-XXXX". In order to combine multiple dumps, you will have to create a new folder "Dump Name-Combined" and copy the individual stream files from the multiple dumps, making sure to rename them "track00.0.hxcstream, track01.0.hxcstream, etc. Then use HxCFloppyEmulator to tell the sane files from the invalid ones. Cherry-pick all the good ones and remove the others. Then make sure the file names are correct.

What can I do if my dump contains ">MISSING BLOCK<" entries?

Dirty drive heads, incorrect calibration, or other bad drive symptoms can be the source of this problem. Pleas try another drive, and make sure to test it with expendable data first.