Pittsburgh PA/USA Says "Hi Yinz!" + Audiomaster Problem

And for those confused at my title, if you're from Pittsburgh, "yinz" means "you", "you all", "everyone", etc. I'll try not to use other Pittsburghese to spare the confusion! Now down to my problem- I dug out all my A500 gear from my garage the other week (bought it in '86, last used in '92) and, in particular, found that I have an original Audiomaster (not copy) and file disk that don't work. I believe the file disk has AM recordings from my nephew/niece from when they were tots almost 20 years ago. I'd really like to see what's on the disk but am not sure where to turn at this point. My WB1.3 disk won't load either. Other original and game copies do load but I don't have any rhyme/reason as to why or why not. I also have some utility programs but don't remember just by the name of them if any of them are disk repair software programs or not. And I'd be afraid of trying them for fear of them wiping the data (not that I can access it now anyways...). It also doesn't help that I'm pretty clueless when it comes to diagnosing what may be wrong with the disks or A500 itself. I bought the computer solely for gaming and know virtually nothing about programing, schematics, chips, etc. Sorry in advance for any dumbing down you have to do for me, but for anyone that can get the Audiomaster files to load, you can pick your favorite item for free of the games (you may have everything anyways, but who knows?!) or hardware (backup A500 or external hard drive?) from my stash, or if you're a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, I have a load of memorabilia and would be more than happy to return the favor!

Hello!

I'm sorry to say it but those disks have most likely suffered the floppy death a long time ago. That means that their magnetic field have simply faded away and the information on them is lost forever.

The easiest way to verify this is if you could get hold of a fresh Workbench boot disk so you can get the computer started. Then insert one of these old disks and see if they are at all readable or if they simply say DOS/Bad or something.

If they are at all readable you should try to make a copy of them first, the best thing would be using XCopy since it will struggle along even if it encounters errors, unlike normal copy commands or Workbench.

I once made a simple copy command that will also struggle along even if is encounters errors. I called it BCopy. See www.onyxsoft.se

I always thought it was yuns... I grew up a few hours drive north of the Burgh, so I'm not quite a native Burghese speaker.. But I do say pop instead of soda.