format for megadisk?

[zxcvbnm]

Does anyone know how to format disks for the Megadisk Interceptor Megadrive game copier made by sane ting?

I got this copier a few months ago and all I have been able to find out about it is:

-That it copies Megadrive games onto "specially" formatted 3 1/2 floppy disks.
-Pressing start+c while it is starting with a game and disk inserted starts it copying the game.
-pressing any button on the d-pad tries to reload if loading fails.
-whenever I try to use a game I copied onto a IBM formatted disk I get a disk error (10-20 I think from memory)
-some of the disks that it came with are playable


All I really need to know is how to format the disks and I found a utility on a website that is supposed to do this but I can't get it to work, it's really old (1992) and can only be used from a command prompt, the instructions are not much help either.

This is the translated version of the site I found the utility on (the file is ISC-UTILS.ZIP):
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...ficial%26sa%3DG

Any help or information would be much appreciated  

[zxcvbnm]

I have found a way to make these floppies!! Here is what worked for me:

First download the file off the link above and extract to the directory of y
our choice, you may want to write it down as you will need it later.

Get a win98 boot floppy (the one I used was 98SE) I have xp so I still sugge
st a 98 boot floppy.

Boot up from the floppy and press SHIFT+F5 at the boot menu to get to a comm
and prompt.

Remove the boot floppy and insert the floppy disk you want to format for the
megadisk after the A:\ prompt appears.

get to the directory you extracted the file to, this will depend on your com
puter (documents and settings is shortened to docume~1). Mine was C:\docume~
1\default\desktop\megadisk

You would get there by typing this(rember this depends on your computer):

c:\ <enter>
cd docume~1 <enter>
cd default <enter>
cd desktop <enter>
cd megadisk <enter>

Once here you need to pick what type of disk you have (2dd or 2hd) (2hd's ar
e the most common and probably the kind you use) and what Megadisk DOS you w
ant to use (consult number 5 in the utils.txt in the download file)

now at the prompt all you need to type is one of the four following commands
:

2hd md55
2dd md55
2hd md49b
2dd md49b

after this press a key and your done! (it won't take long to format about 10
seconds.)

[mnbvcxz]

This is the entire list of instructions I have written for the mega disk (I'm leaving them here for anyone's refrence) and the utilities are found at:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...ficial%26sa%3DG

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CONTENTS

1. PREFACE
2. USING A MEGA DISK ON A MEGADRIVE/GENISES II
3. LOADING GAMES WITH THE MEGA DISK
3a. LOADING FROM FLOPPY DISK
3b. LOADING GAMES FROM CARTRIDGE
4. PREREQUISITES FOR COPING GAMES
5. FORMATTING DISKS
5a. GETTING THE UTILITIES IN PLACE
5b. USING THE UTILITIES TO FORMAT DISKS
6. COPING GAMES
6a. COPING FROM CARTRIDGE
6b. COPING DOWNLOADED/STORED GAMES TO DISK FROM A PC



________________________________________________________________________________________________


1. PREFACE
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


The MEGA DISK is designed to backup/copy MEGA DRIVE/GENISES games. The MEGA DISK sits on top of the MEGA DRIVE/GENISES and needs no external power supply.  It was designed for the first MEGA DRIVE/GENISES, but will work with a MEGA DRIVE/GENISES II. When connected to the system it enables games to be copied to specially formatted 3.5" floppy disks (see part 5. FORMATTING DISKS) and and played from 3.5" floppy disk without the original cartridge. It is now possible to copy downloaded MEGA DRIVE/GENISES ROMs to a disk that can be played on the MEGA DISK (see part 6. COPING GAMES)


________________________________________________________________________________________________


2. USING A MEGA DISK ON A MEGA DRIVE/GENISES II
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To use a MEGA DISK on a MEGA DRIVE II you will need a pencil eraser or piece of rubber with dimensions of approximately 9mm thick (most important), 20mm wide and 40mm long. A tool is also needed to use the "POWER" and "RESET" buttons, a cover from an empty PCI slot cover off a PC works well. To use a PCI slot cover curl the tabbed end(opposite end to where they normally screw in) with a set of needle nose pliers. the tip should point in the opposite direction it normally would and the curl should have a diameter of approximately 4mm.

Place the eraser just in front of the power light between the writing "16-BIT" and "MEGA DRIVE II", the eraser should be sitting just above the controller ports. Insert the MEGA DISK like a game cartridge. Use the PCI slot cover to turn the power on and off.


________________________________________________________________________________________________


3. LOADING GAMES WITH THE MEGA DISK
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


3a. LOADING FROM FLOPPY DISK
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To load a game from a floppy disk turn the whole system on WITHOUT any floppy disks or cartridges inserted. When "INSERT DISK" appears on screen insert the disk you want to play. If their are multiple games on the disk you will need to select one of the games with the D-PAD and press "B". If their is only one game or part of a game it will start loading automatically. If the game is split onto two disks when prompted remove disk 1, insert disk 2 and press "B".


NOTE: Loading can sometimes fail turn the system off and try again.


..................................................................................................................................................................................................


3b. LOADING GAMES FROM CARTRIDGE
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To use cartridge games without removing the MEGA DISK insert a game cartridge into the cartridge slot on top of the system and turn the system ON, be sure not to press any of the buttons on the control pad until the game has loaded. Due to the wide cartridge slot the MEGA DISK can act like a pass through adapter for Japanese games. The label of the game should face the OPPOSITE direction to the hinge of the cartridge slot dust cover.


NOTE 1: The MEGA DISK cannot be used with MASTER SYSTEM games, even with a power base converter.


________________________________________________________________________________________________


4. PREREQUISITES FOR COPING GAMES
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To use the following information you will need a MEGA DISK game copier and a mega drive 1 or 2, empty IBM formatted floppy disks, a WINDOWS 95,98,ME or XP computer with at least 1 floppy disk drive, a WINDOWS 98 boot floppy, a copy of the MEGA DISK utilities and a game cartridge or a downloaded ROM file in either .SMD or .MGD to copy.


NOTE 1: This procedure won't work with all WINDOWS computers, it will only work if the file system is FAT32 (It will probably work under a FAT file system as well). Most WIN98 and ME computers use FAT32.

To check what file system is used in WINXP go to START>ALL PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>SYSTEM TOOLS>SYSTEM INFORMATION then go to COMPONENTS>STORAGE>DRIVES the list on the right of the screen will have a list, look for file system under ITEM next to it will show the filesystem in use.

NOTE 2: I have not copied any .MGD files, but have read that the MEGA DISK is compatible with them.

NOTE 3: A WINDOWS 95 or ME boot disk should work, a WINDOWS XP DOS boot disk will not, as it is incompatible with the megadisk utilities.


________________________________________________________________________________________________


5. FORMATTING DISKS
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


5a. GETTING THE UTILITIES IN PLACE
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To copy games with the MEGA DISK first you must format disks that it can use. To format these disks first you will need to have the utilities in place so they can format them!

To get the utilities ready for use boot into Windows and go into MY COMPUTER and pick a HARD DISK DRIVE, get into the drive by DOUBLE-CLICKING the drive icon, find some empty space where no files/folders are and RIGHT-CLICK then go to NEW>FOLDER, name the folder "MEGADISK" (without quotation marks). Go into the "MEGA DISK" folder by DOUBLE-CLICKING it and Create 2 more folders WITHIN it (RIGHT-CLICK NEW>FOLDER), name one of the folders "GAMES" (without quotation marks) and the other "UTILS" (without quotation marks).

Now you will need your copy of the MEGA DISK UTILITIES (file name "isc-util.zip"). Extract the .zip archive to X:\MEGADISK\UTILS (the "UTILS" FOLDER) where "X" is the letter/name of the drive you chose for the step above. See your zip program's help file on how to extract files.

IF you use WIN95/98/ME you will need a program to extract the file, if you don't already have a program that can extract the file many good freeware download programs exist.

NOTE 1: It is best not to use an external hard disk drive as it may not be able to be read from DOS.

NOTE 2: Take note of or write down the letter/name, eg. c:, of the disk you chose, as you will need it later.


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5b. USING THE UTILITIES TO FORMAT DISKS
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


Once the UTILITIES are in place only the steps below need to be followed to format disks.

To format the disks insert a WINDOWS 98 boot floppy into the floppy disk drive and restart the computer. When the disk loads their will be a menu on screen with options like "start computer with CD-rom support", press SHIFT+F5 to get a command prompt(hold down SHIFT then press F5). After a few moments a "A:\" prompt will appear, now remove the WINDOWS 98 boot disk and insert a IBM formatted floppy disk you want to format for the MEGA DISK.

Now you need to choose what kind of disk you have to format 2HD or 2DD, if you know it to be a 2DD disk then replace "ttt" below with "2DD" (without quotation marks). If you know the kind of disk as a 2HD floppy disk then replace "ttt" below with "2HD" (without quotation marks). If you Don't know what kind it is then it's probably a 2HD (very common), so replace "ttt" with "2HD" (without quotation marks).

Now you need to choose what kind of MEGA DISK-DOS you want to use, MEGADISK-DOS 4.9b or MEGA DISK-DOS 5.5c. MEGA DISK-DOS 4.9b is used for a single game on either 1 or 2 disks. MEGA-DOS 5.5c is used for multiple games on 1 disk. To use MEGA DISK-DOS 4.9b replace "ddddd" below with "MD49B" (without quotation marks). To use MEGA DISK-DOS 5.5c replace "ddddd" below with "MD55" (without quotation marks).

Type in the following where "X" is replaced with the drive letter the utilities are on, ttt is replace with the disk type, ddddd is replaced with the desired DOS version  and <enter> means to press enter:

X:\ <ENTER>
cd X:\megadisk\utils <ENTER>
ttt ddddd
 
At the prompt press a key. Ignore the drive letter it displays, it will format the disk in the drive the boot disk was in if there is only one floppy disk drive.

Wait for the "X:\MEGADISK\UTILS>" prompt to re-appear and the disk is ready to have a game copied to it. It will only take approximately 30 seconds for this to happen.


NOTE: I have only had success in coping games with MEGA DISK-DOS 4.9b, so I suggest using MEGA DISK-DOS 4.9b only. From what I can tell the only difference is each game will need it's own disk. MEGA DISK-DOS 4.9b can also copy a larger game onto two disks, but only within system memory constraints.


________________________________________________________________________________________________


6. COPING GAMES
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


6a. COPING FROM CARTRIDGE
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To copy from a cartridge first insert the game to be copied and a disk, formatted as detailed above, that the game will be copied to into the MEGA DISK while the MEGA DRIVE/GENISES is switched off. Turn the MEGA DRIVE/GENISES on whilst holding down both the "START" and "C" buttons on the control pad and the game will start coping. If the game requires a second floppy disk "INSERT DISK 2" will appear on screen, remove the first disk and insert a second (formatted) disk, then press the "B" button to resume saving.


NOTE: If a game is too large for the system memory then saving will fail. The largest game the MEGA DISK can save is 16Megabits or just over 2Megabytes. While saving the size of the game will be shown on-screen in megabits, the game cartridge is referred to on screen as "CARD". IF the size the "card" is larger than the size of "RAM" then saving will fail.


..................................................................................................................................................................................................


6b. COPING DOWNLOADED/STORED GAMES TO DISK FROM A PC
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To copy a downloaded or stored game file to a floppy disk that is playable with the MEGA DISK, first move the file from where it's located to the "GAMES" folder (X:\MEGADISK\GAMES where "X" is the name of the chosen drive) as detailed in part 5a. The game file should end in .smd or with numbers but any type of downloaded ROM for the MEGA DRIVE/GENISES is worth a try as the MEGA DISK is compatible with the file format from a few different MEGA DRIVE/GENISES game copiers. Take note of or write down the name of the game files to be copied to disk as they will be need in MS-DOS.

To start coping the file restart the computer with the WIN98 boot floppy in the drive. At the menu that has options like "start computer wit CD-ROM support" press SHIFT+F5 simultaneously (press down SHIFT then press F5) to get a command prompt. After a short time an "A:\" prompt will appear, after it has appeared remove the WIN98 boot floppy and insert a MEGA DISK formatted disk.

Type the following, replacing "X" with the name of the drive you chose in part 5a, replacing "Y" with the name of your floppy disk drive (normally A:) replacing ffff.fff with the name of the file to be copied to disk and where <ENTER> means to press ENTER.

X:\ <enter>
cd X:\MEGADISK\UTILS <ENTER>
IMC X:\MEGADISK\GAMES\ffff.fff Y: <enter>

Now press any key at the prompt, ignoring what drive letter is displayed on screen. If the game requires a second disk it will prompt for one. If you are prompted for a second disk remove the first disk, insert a second (formatted) disk and press a key.

If all has went well then the disk/disks should play on the MEGA DISK.


NOTE 1: If a game is too large for the MEGA DISK system memory then loading will fail. The largest game the MEGA DISK can load is 16Megabits or just over 2Megabytes.

NOTE 2: IF the ROM file is an archive eg. .zip then it will need to be extracted before entering MS-DOS.


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2c: COPING A GAME FROM FLOPPY DISK TO A COMPUTER
..................................................................................................................................................................................................


To copy a game from a floppy disk to the computer follow all of the steps in part 2b except insert the game to be copied instead of a disk to be copied to and replace the last line as follows:

replace this--> IMC X:\MEGADISK\GAMES\ffff.fff Y: <enter>
with this ----> IMC Y: X:\MEGADISK\GAMES\ffff.fff <enter>

NOTE: I have not tried this so the actual line may be changed to this instead:
IMC Y: X:\MEGADISK\GAMES <enter>

________________________________________________________________________________________________

[nooby]

thank you for posting these tuts...
i will give it a try

[anametouseonce]

A little correction to the above in formation where ever it call to type X:\ type only X: and it should work fine  

[anametouseasecondtime]

A download file that contains the mega disk utilities, updated information and other utilities to add functionality can downloaded at:

http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone8/cat41/index.htm

(the file is about half way down the page under the heading "Mega disk interceptor Mega drive/Genesis copier utililities")

[Blake2425]

I made a video about this device.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF22-48UVv8

Link in the description to download the MegaDisk utilities.