PowerCopy Pro

[demoniac]

I'm pretty sure Marauder II does not copy Dragon's Lair. I purchased Marauder II and ended up buying Dragon's Lair.

[deicidal]

Dragons Lair was such a twat to copy even the official replicators had problems

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Supamax

Yes but... Marauder II is not able to slow down the drive.
The ability to slow down the drive is still mandatory ...

Hmm...

There are two references to Maurauder II in the readme.acu file:

1 SLOW DOWN YOUR DF1: TO 6700 (USE MARAUDER II SPEED-CHECKER)

and

2 SLOW DOWN YOUR DESTINATION DRIVE (DF1:) TO 6618-6620 (USE MARAUDER II)

Perhaps the implication is not that Marauder II can be used to slow down the drive, but only to check its speed.

[mr.vince]

Dragons lair needs special hardware... Either a slowed drive or a mastering machine that can reduce bitcell width.

The only solution that will get you a fresh copy of this game today would be KryoFlux.

@Prowler: yes, there's a "famous" potentiometer mod for the A1010. However, you will be writing with wrong coercivity. Not a major issue, but will degrade the quality of the copy.

Modern drives have digital speed control, so it's usually impossible to slow them.

[prowler]

Thanks for the info, mr.vince!

Hmm... I'm spoilt for choice then. Either I hook up a potentiometer to My A1010 external drive for an inferior copy, or I fire up my KryoFlux for the real deal!

Only one problem: I'm not looking for a copy!

[Supamax]

Originally Posted by prowler

Perhaps the implication is not that Marauder II can be used to slow down the drive, but only to check its speed.

Exactly

[BarryB]

How do you write IPF's back on a real Amiga with Powercopy, or can you?

I have Stingrays PowerCopy and assume you use the DEVICE button to navigate to the IPF, however when I click the DEVICE > DEV Path button I get an empty requester and can't select anything as it won't respond to anything I click? If I manually type the Path/filename in the 'Current device path' box I can click Accept and set source as DEV and target as DF0/DF1 but whatever is written back is garbage?

[prowler]

IPFs cannot be written back to floppy disk on an Amiga using PowerCopy.

[BarryB]

I thought not, guess I'm getting confused with the WWARP method and copying back to disk.

[Retro1234]

Create a DeviceDrawer in WinUae from the IPF - basicly the Reverse of writing but only a limited number of games with writable protection.

Rainbow Islands - IPF 1311
Giana Sisters
Supercars - 1 particular IPF
Smash TV
Final Fight
Agony.................

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by prowler

IPFs cannot be written back to floppy disk on an Amiga using PowerCopy.

They can : you just need to insert the IPF in winuae, and then define a DEV folder with the name of the game. the last thing to do is knowing the disk geometry (protection format). The tracks must not be too long, and not using a nasty physical protection. Once the copy is done in DEV, you zip the folder containing all the tracks then you pass it on your real amiga where powercopy is on a hard drive and then you copy it back to disk

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

They can : you just need to insert the IPF in winuae, and then define a DEV folder with the name of the game. the last thing to do is knowing the disk geometry (protection format). The tracks must not be too long, and not using a nasty physical protection. Once the copy is done in DEV, you zip the folder containing all the tracks then you pass it on your real amiga where powercopy is on a hard drive and then you copy it back to disk

I had just begun to realize that it could be done in WinUAE when Boo Boo posted above and it was too late to edit my reply.

Thanks for describing the procedure, Denis.

[BarryB]

Thanks. I've tried one IPF, Menace (which I dumped for CAPS a few years ago) but obviously there is some protection not carried across. Used IndexSync to create the files and wrote back on my A1200 but always the game goes into demo mode

At least I now know how to get an IPF back to disk, the other problem is knowing what to set PowerCopy to so it makes a good copy!!

[dlfrsilver]

the psygnosis serial track can't be copied like this unfortunately. It's a very long track, that can be only copied from disk to disk by powercopy.

[BarryB]

Is there a Parameter disk with PowerCopy? When you install to hard drive it asks for volume 'Parameters'?

[dlfrsilver]

parameters in this case is not enough. There is a parameter, indeed, for menace in powercopy. But while 99% of the tracks can be copied, the very last one has a length of $1A2C and no sync (typical Psygnosis serial track) which can only be copied with a drive that can be slowed down.

[mr.vince]

Or written with a KryoFlux, perfectly. No fiddling with drives, no parameter tweaking.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by BarryB

Is there a Parameter disk with PowerCopy? When you install to hard drive it asks for volume 'Parameters'?

Yes

[BarryB]

@dlfrsilver: Strange, I've managed to backup all my Psygnosis games using Cyclone/X-Copy (Killing Game Show, Leander spring to mind) yet Menace I just can't do?

@mr.vince: Is it really that easy? I just buy a Kyroflux, attach a PC Floppy disk + power then bung a blank DD disk in and 'DTC gamename.ipf -w' and that's it, for ALL IPF's in the wild

@Boo Boo: Is that Parameters disk for download anywhere, or do they need the Hardware? (Edit: Found the disk )

[dlfrsilver]

Because there is a difference between copy from disk to disk and copy from disk to folder and folder to disk. Some protections like the one used on Leander for instance. Or obitus, or amour geddon.