Task: Backup a Compact Flash or SD Card Hard Drive Image
Needed: Compact Flash or SD Card with an Hard Drive Image
Time: 10-15 Minutes
Introduction
I recently picked up an Amiga 4000 that came with an installed IDE compact flash hard drive. The CF card had a nice install of AmigaOS with lots of WHDLoad games, demos, and MOD file music all launchable from TinyLauncher. I decided I like the install enough to make a backup of it. Unfortunately, the imaging software I usually use didn’t have a read and save option.
I ended up downloading and trying the HDD Raw Copy Tool that worked great. The HDD Raw Copy Tool performs a low-level, sector-by-sector acquisition and can save it as a plain raw .img file. This preserves the entire disk, including partitions, boot information, and sectors. This was important for my Amiga because their hard disks commonly use the Rigid Disk Block (RDB) scheme. A full RDB disk image contains the drive’s partitioning information as well as the partitions themselves.
Instructions
First, download the HDD Raw Copy Tool from here. I chose the portable executable.
Second, launch the software and select the source CF / SD card. Assign the target file name and target location. Click Run and Start Copy.
Verify the copy using an emulator or write it back to a new CF / SD card for booting on your retro computer.
Comments
This was super easy to use. Very happy to have a backup.