Insufficient rights even as administrator

Help on how to use HxD.
Post Reply
simonc8
Posts: 3
Joined: 21 Feb 2019 12:29

Insufficient rights even as administrator

Post by simonc8 »

I am trying to extract bytes from a floppy disk which was created outside Windows. When I tried to open the disk drive, the first error said I should be an administrator, then when I ran the programme as an administrator it gave the error that I still had insufficient rights. I also tried opening the physical disk and it gave

System Error. Code:1785. The disk media is not recognized. It may not be formatted.

and shows zeros in all the byte locations.

I don't have any information about the formatting used for the disk, but it contains MIDI System Exclusive data, and was created using an Alesis Datadisk.

What are my options for trying to extract data from this disk?

Grateful for assistance.
Maël
Site Admin
Posts: 1454
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Re: Insufficient rights even as administrator

Post by Maël »

What version of HxD and Windows are you using? Was the drive name A:?

It is probably due to how Windows determines the size of a floppy disk (usually assuming some kind of file system it can read). Under Windows NT+ there are no "pure" physical floppy disks anymore.
Yeah, searching the web turned up this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/hel ... d-by-windo

As a temporary workaround, you can use dd for Windows: http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

You probably want a command like this:

Code: Select all

dd if=\\.\a: of=c:\temp\disk1.img bs=1440k
You can then open this file as disk image in HxD.

If you manage to get the file this way, I'd be grateful for a copy of it, so I can see if HxD can be made to work with it.

Let me know how it goes, I might have other suggestions on how to get at the disk's data.
simonc8
Posts: 3
Joined: 21 Feb 2019 12:29

Re: Insufficient rights even as administrator

Post by simonc8 »

Thanks for your reply.

My version of HxD is Version 2.2.1.0 (x86-64), and OS is Windows 7 Professional 64bit. The disk drive is A:\. It's a USB plug in floppy disk drive. I tested it with some old Windows floppies and it recognises those and reads the files correctly.

I tried the command you suggested with dd for windows - it gave the same error as HxD:

Code: Select all

Error reading file: 1785 The disk media is not recognized. It may not be formatted.
I also found the same microsoft page and went through procedures on various webpages to obtain dskprobe.exe. I haven't made it work on Windows 7 yet - it must be missing some additional dll or other file.
Maël
Site Admin
Posts: 1454
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Re: Insufficient rights even as administrator

Post by Maël »

It's unlikely diskprobe will work any better, if dd fails as well. There is only one way to access floppy disks or harddisks under Windows. I suggested dd because it uses the minimum set of APIs. If it fails, it's probably at a driver/file system level when doing simple reads of the disk.

I actually tried your setup on a virtual machine and could not reproduce the error (obviously only with a made up example that may not match what you have closely enough). This may be because a USB floppy drive is not the same as a native built-in one. USB floppy drives are more restricted in what they can read/process.

But you could try Virtual Box together with Ubuntu, and use dd there as well (or some other tool). Linux is sometimes more relaxed in its requirements regarding hardware/data formats.

One example of disks you wont be able to read, including not under other OSes like Linux, are Amiga floppies, because the magnetic flux changes (magnetic field polarity changes) are arranged differently, from "standard" PC floppies. To read them you need special drives and special hardware to drive them. So maybe the issue is at a lower level. With this special hardware it would work under Windows.

Is there any filesystem on the disks? Because if you just have raw data, you still need to figure out what to do with it.
Maël
Site Admin
Posts: 1454
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 14:15

Re: Insufficient rights even as administrator

Post by Maël »

A quick search shows this:
https://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?t=711

Apparently your hardware uses a special floppy format, as suspected.
So try Linux with a native built-in floppy drive, or if this fails, maybe somebody in that forum link can help you further.
If you get it to work, or create a thread somewhere, please add a link here as well, so people can find it in future.
simonc8
Posts: 3
Joined: 21 Feb 2019 12:29

Re: Insufficient rights even as administrator

Post by simonc8 »

Many thanks for your research. I will add a post if I have any success. There is a small chance I may be able to get hold of an Alesis Datadisk which would solve the problem.
Post Reply