Disk Copy 6

Dunno off hand. Perhaps the fact that Apple officially supported 6.3.3 from 1999 and included 6.3.3 on every OS release from then through to the final classic mode releases in 2005 or 6 is bit of a clue?

Or they just wanted not to hand out even more useful tools for a system they announced they dropped support for, so people would move on to Mac OS X quicker.

Of course, it also wouldn't appear in any "regular" OS release, because they don't release anything that didn't reach Gold Master status to an end-user, no matter if the software is perfectly stable or unstable.

After all the testing 6.5b13 went through by people over the years, it doesn't seem there's reason to be concerned about it more than 6.3.3. I think it's like MPW -- the final version was only distributed online (in a page meant only for developers) in late 2002, and it's a beta version, yet it doesn't seem to have any particular shortcomings compared to the last Gold Master version. In fact, it even addresses issues found in the GM version.

I think 6.3.3 is an important key version for being 68k-compatible and, for whatever it may be worth, a Gold Master version, but also that that paragraph in the description should be reworded or not be there at all, at least not without some explanation or reference. For instance, it could be replaced with a disclaimer like the following: "Note: As 6.3.3 was the last Gold Master version, we recommend its usage above the others, although no issues are known to exist in later versions."

As usual, just my 2 cents.

Description above only attributes ".cdr" to DC 6.5b13 - maybe if description was better honest and included its support for mounting ".toast" and ".iso" more people would take an interest.

I've been using b13 as a Can Opener for many years now, no trouble. I stopped short of using it to create images, using 6.3.3 instead, because I tested 6.5 would add a much larger wrapper bytes upon the images it created. Maybe it works good making images too, haven't tried.

I administer my OS9 collection from OS X Tiger and prefer an archive image created by OS X 10.3.8 or less (so that the master archives are created within a protective memory system unlike OS9) , and so that both Tiger and OS 9 DC 6.5b13 use the same one archive image files, files able to be any size I have 33GB images now. DC 6.3.3 is limited in image file size to 1or 2 GB, and from what I took in earlier I got that 6.5 won't build bigger than 2 GB images, it only reads those images.

It seems after Jobs held his "public funeral" for OS9 then it became against the law to further work on updates such as DC 6.5 even if the project was working well.

I always find myself taking notice of this statement when visiting this page:

Note: If using Disk Copy 6 on a regular basis we should only be using version 6.3.3. [...] Disk Copy 6.3.3 is recognized as being the most stable and complete feature wise, when used in the classic Mac OS environment.

The 2nd statement ("6.3.3 [...] most [...] complete feature wise") is simply false and that's no secret (more files can be mounted on 6.4 and 6.5b11 & b13), and I don't know of a single instance any version newer than 6.3.3 as being at all unstable in any way 6.3.3 is not, particularly 6.5b13 (I never used 6.4 or 6.5b11). Is there some known example to back up that point regarding stability?

Also, is there any known problem regarding using those newer versions as opposed to 6.3.3?

I don't know. But I did delete my Disk Copy Prefs before I tested another version. So maybe there's something in that.

Hi Franky, I think maybe you were not trying with Disk Copy 4.2 image sizes 800K or 1.4MB, to have that not work for you in earlier versions at the time?

Never mind, it forced me to go and double-check and that's always a good thing

I added a screenshot from 6.1.2 above, which doesn't have issues with creating DC 4.2 images and amended the page info.

3rd DL: Disk Copy 6.3; Another milestone release. Introduces support for creating self-mounting images and Disk Copy 4.2 images (720k, 800k and 1,4 MB floppies)

* Introduces support for creating self-mounting images - Yes
* Introduces support for creating Disk Copy 4.2 images (720k, 800k and 1,4 MB floppies) - No

Disk Copy 6.x had DC 4.2 support built-in before our earliest copy of version 6.1.2, above. But a reason for starting our archive at version 6.1.2, was because back in the day, Apple recommended not using earlier NDIF versions of Disk Copy 6.x for disk copying/creation. It's only from version 6.1.2 and onwards, do we get the Disk Copy 6.x (look & feel) that we're most familiar with:

Remove any copies of Disk Image Mounter and Disk Copy 6.0.1

Disk Copy 6.1.2 provides all the functionality of Disk Image Mounter, a utility that was included with some Power Book models. Disk Copy 6.0.1 was released only to developers and Support Professional Solution Series subscribers. To avoid problems working with disk images, it is important to remove all copies of both Disk Image Mounter and Disk Copy 6.0.1 and rebuild your desktop after installing Disk Copy 6.1.2. If you have upgraded from Disk Copy 6.1, you may also want to rebuild your desktop; some of the icons in Disk Copy 6.1.2 have been revised.

— excerpt is from the 6.1.2 user guide (PDF download, above).

It says here that although self-mounting images (.smi) can't be created with system software earlier than Mac OS 8.1, they can still be mounted in earlier System versions.

The question is: how early? System 2.1? System 6? Disk Copy itself won't work with anything earlier than SSW 7, but what about the .smi and other non-Disk-Copy-4.2-formatted images?

@MacTouch; Thanks. I removed some items as the page is starting to bloat. I also removed the French copy*. I think that because of the incremental number of items that are already here. Other language specific versions could go into their own pages, e.g.; Disk Copy 6 [French], or Disk Copy 6 [German], etc. etc.;

That said, I did retain the 6.3 milestone and beta11 uploads.

I would like to see uploaded, the very earliest version copy distributed by Apple which I think was 6.0.1, but little else for now. Thanks again.

* I moved the French copy to it's own location under your name - its your upload
Please add other localized versions to it if you feel like it and update the page description as you see fit.

Hi mrdav. Yes, official Apple releases only - from Dev CD or Apple released CD's especially. We probably do not need them for day to day use or even all of the release versions. But I would like to see 6.0.1 here for historical reasons and 6.1.2 as that was a real milestone version release. The others, not so much as 6.3.3 is the most useful/stable version.

I can locate either of these easily enough, just haven't gotten around to it as yet.

The page has been updated. What can be added to this page will be earlier official NDIF Apple Disk Copy 6 releases beginning 6.0.1 to 6.3.2, when located.

@3371-Alpha: I removed the uploads that came from the other Disk Copy 6 page - these are actually unrelated to any of Apple's Disk Copy 6.x released versions and are user-made, based on Disk Copy 4.2 (beta 5.0) code, despite their version numbering and assumed/made-up description on that page. You can read about it in this page. Scroll down the page to chapter beginning

DiskCopy 5.0d1-6.0 by Steve Christensen (and "anonymous contributors"). Based on a beta of DiskCopy 5.0 that was leaked to the general public without Steve's consent, this application has been lurking on BBS's for years, wearing several different version numbers. Although they look and act much like DiskCopy 4.2...

In fact Disk Copy 4.2 and above screenshots should be unbundled from the above uploads and placed into it's own page (and credited to Steve Christensen, along with those unofficial Disk Copy uploads) as they are quite separate entities, just unfortunately sharing a common confusing naming scheme.

This page (and the other) is going to get a badly needed overhaul.

Example, mounting an ISO image using Disk Copy 6.3.3 vs 6.5b13. I assume in pre-OSX everyone's been using Toast, here's what happens (on SimpsonsVirtualSpringfield.ISO) :

Disk Copy 6 3.3
set file Type Code = "dimg", the PC partition mounts, no Mac.
set file Type Code = "devr", error -50.

Disk Copy 6.5b13
set file Type Code = "dimg", the PC partition mounts, no Mac.
set file Type Code = "devr", the Mac partition mounts.*
*as long as the PC partition is ejected first.

Disk Copy v6.5b13 can also mount some .cdr and/or .toast images, "GImg" was a Type Code for .toast iirc

Here is interesting information on DMGs and DiskCopy 6.4/6.5, and HexEdit:
http://www.computing.net/answers/mac/mac-os-91-dmg/11562.html

Here is an interesting addition to DiskCopy 6.4/6.5: DMG mechanic; this is a life safer for Mac OS 9 when a DMG went through the net and is not exactly okay anymore:
http://www.lafty.com/archive.shtml

Balrog: So does using 6.3.3 and saving in version 4.2 not save the tags then? And if this is the case, is there another disk duplicator that will image a folder and save with the tags needed for 400K & 800K disks?

@IIGS_User:

For floppy disks, Disk Copy 4.2 should always be used. It saves "tags" which Disk Copy 6.3.3 ignores.
This is only important with 400K and 800K disks. 1.44MB disks don't have tags to begin with.

Tags are extremely critical with Lisa disks. Lisa disk images without tags are useless.

@Mike Garden:

Huh interesting. Though remember: only a real Mac can read 400 or 800K disks.

I recommend Disk Copy 4.2 (NOT 6.x) for imaging ALL 400/800K disks. This is because it stores data that newer utilities ignore.

@IIGS_User:

You'll get that error if you mount Disk Copy 4.2 images with a variant of mini vMac that doesn't support sony-sum.

But, where are you getting this error? Is it for images you created yourself? Try restarting with extensions off and seeing what happens.

Yeah, as has probably been said many times before, Disk Copy v6.4 and v6.5 handle uncompressed, unencrypted OSX Disk Utility disk images.

6.4 is here, and it handles OS X images as well. I'd rather not use a beta if I don't have to.

Disk Copy 4.2 really was made for copying disks on the original macs. You can't even mount images with it; there's a separate utility for that. It wasn't until later that DiskCopy became such a cool and easy-to-use all-around tool.

Yeah, no kidding. I couldn't even figure out how to make a disk image in 4.2.

If someone wants to play something on a real machine, they'll just have to use a real floppy.

Emulators can use whatever kinds of disk images their developers saw fit to include support for. On a real Macintosh, DiskCopy 6.3.3 requires Mac OS 7.1.1 minimum, so users of earlier systems have to use DiskCopy 4.2 and MountImage.

There's your history lesson for today.

Edit :Replaced 'xxx 7' by 'Mac OS 7' - IIGS User

Two more hints regarding Disk Copy and disk images:

If you create a .dmg image using Disk Utility in Mac OS X, it shouldn't be a problem to use .dmg files within a classic Mac OS emulator.
Such images just need to be re-initialized the first time when mounted in the emulator.

Second hint: If you use Disk Copy 6.3 to prepare a Mini vMac-capable game, set it's disk image file format to "Disk Copy 4.2", then stuff this image with Stuffit version 4.x, not a newer version of Stuffit.

I rarely use the feature, and archive everything in .img format. Nobody would ever remember to make the .dmg uncompressed anyway. It's just handy sometimes when trying to fix something somebody uploaded in the wrong format!

DiskCopy 6.5 (requires 9.1) will open .dmg files if they are not compressed. There might be some other qualifications too, but I know if I make an uncompressed .dmg on my G3 iMac under OS 10.2.8 and then switch to 9.1, it can mount with DC 6.5. I've never tried it in classic mode or with an emulator.