What do I do with my PC disk images?

[CaseCrash]

Howdy! Around 2006/2007 i talked to Grendel when the IBM PC dats were starting. Since then, I've collected two boxes filled with disks of pc software from the 80's and 90's. What do I do with the dats I create and what do I do with the actual data? (if discussing disk image distribution is verboten, then don't worry about it) Also, I have a few confusions regarding what format the images should be in (3.5", 5.25", and cd) and how to categorize the sets (dos 4.0, 5.0. 5.5 compatible, win 3.0, 3.11, 95 compatible, whatever). And third, I guess, I'm scanning images of all the cds and floppy labels, what should i do with those data sets?

Thanks!

--Case

Also, Why is this tag available? it seems annoying

[Aral]

Hi Case,  I am currently working on the IBM floppies dat so once you've ripped your floppies with winimage you can upload the data and dats to a place like sharebee.com and PM me a link to them.  As for the CD's its best to rip them as per the directions on toseciso.org and then let idoru know what you've ripped.  Happy dumping

[PandMonium]

Hi,

i think Aral already said it all, any help you might need just ask.
About the annoying flag, you've to ask to SMF guys why since it is not useful at all
Maybe in SMF 2.0 they replaced it with some more useful ones but it isn't stable yet.

[CaseCrash]

Does anyone have any techniques to deal with disks with reading (crc check) errors? or that simply don't seem to work at all? should I just throw them away or is it possible to get data from them? (i have a couple of rare disks that no one cares about that concern me in particular)

Thanks!

--CaseCrash

[mudz]

I've found that some disks (specifically Sierra quests) have bad sectors (crc check errors) intentionally as a write protection method. In this case I have simply ignored the error using WinImage.
If they aren't legitimate bad sectors, I don't think there's much you can do (except keep the disk and hope that you can reinstate it from someone else's image). In some cases I've simply blown in the disk and it was enough but in most cases that doesn't work.
If someone else does have a method, be good to hear from them.