Unpublished Amiga game resurrected

I finally found the game I worked on in 1994 in an old floppys I have. The game loads and runs, but when I wanted to DiskCopy the floppy, it gave me “track 76 corrupted” or something like that, and I don’t have XCopy on my Amiga1200 to fix that. The game is of “Shadow of the beast style”, a high quality graphics platformer.
My questions:

- Is there a way to copy the disk with DiskCopy even if Track 76 is bad? (I have only one copy and if I lose it that’s it)
- Whats the procedure required to get the game running on WinUAE on PC? could anyone help me with that?

I’m in Vancouver Canada BTW.

[TCD]

Hi Auday,

that are great news
For the second point : Once you have an image of the disk (ADF file) there is nothing else to do. I will work with WinUAE just fine. In the WinUAE package you'll find a program called transdisk to transfer the image to a PC

[Shoonay]

Cool, good job Auday, thanks.
I'm sure you'll do just fine with the help of the folks here
We LOVE old never-released games!

[prowler]

Hi Auday,

You can make a copy of your disk, even with track 76 bad using DMS. Grab it here:
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=467834&postcount=4

First, insert the disk you wish to copy into df0:
Then launch DMS using the execute dialogue.
Invoke DMS twice using the command syntax:
DMS read disk-1.dms from df0: low 0 high 75 (packs tracks 0-75 of the disk in df0: to disk-1.dms)
and
DMS read disk-2.dms from df0: low 77 high 79 (packs tracks 77-79 of the disk in df0: to disk-2.dms)

Now replace the disk in df0: with the blank disk you wish to copy it to and format it.

Then invoke DMS twice more using the command syntax:
DMS write disk-1.dms to df0: low 0 high 75
and
DMS write disk-2.dms to df0: low 77 high 79

The copy disk is now a replica of the original disk, except that track 76 is blank (but readable).

prowler

[Bamiga2002]

prowler to the rescue !

[turrican3]

great news auday, can't wait to see that

Thank you all for the replies!

I haven't used Amiga since 1996, so bare with me

@TheCyberDruid: I dont know how to make ADF files. I noticed that the A1200 I bought (recently) has CrossDos on its HD but didnt know how to use it.

@Prowler: So I downloaded this file (dms2.32) on my pc, what do I do next?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Auday

Thank you all for the replies!

I haven't used Amiga since 1996, so bare with me

@Prowler: So I downloaded this file (dms2.32) on my pc, what do I do next?

Hi Auday,

Copy it to a 720k PC-formatted floppy disk and transfer it to your Amiga.

The dms2.32 file is executable on the Amiga (rename it to DMS if you wish, it's just DMS v2.32).

If CrossDOS is installed on your Amiga, then the PC-formatted floppy should auto-mount as PC0:

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Auday

@TheCyberDruid: I dont know how to make ADF files. I noticed that the A1200 I bought (recently) has CrossDos on its HD but didnt know how to use it.

If you use that method prowler suggested and have a working disk again, you can also use DMS to make an image of the disk. You only need to transfer this image to your PC, but I think prowler can guide you through the process Best of luck with it

[nujack]

@Auday: Was it successful? Any help needed?

[BlueAchenar]

I've recovered some bad tracks in my floppies by cleaning the surface with isopropanol. But you should probably only try that after you already have imaged the other tracks.

[Calgor]

There were some buggy versions of DMS which resulted in corrupt files, so I would suggest to use trannsdisk as suggested by TheCyberDruid.

http://winuaehelp.back2roots.org/started/transdisk.htm

You can use (assuming 1mb spare ram:, else replace ram: with your hard disk or df1: )

1. Insert original disk in df0:
2. transdisk >ram:dF0_1.adf -s 0 -e 75
3. Insert blank formatted floppy disk in df0: (with same file format OFS/FFS as original)
4. transdisk >ram:dF0_2.adf -s 76 -e 76
5. Insert original disk in df0:
6. transdisk >ram:dF0_3.adf -s 77 -e 79
7. cd ram:
8. COPY /B DF0_1.adf+DF0_2.adf+DF0_3.adf DF0.adf

If you want to be sure it has been extracted correctly, then repeat the procedure twice and compare adf files.

But it would be easier to use XCopy if someone uploads it to copy to a blank formatted floppy all tracks except 76 with verify turned on.

Only suggesting the extra verification as it is your one and only original disk and if track 76 is bad who knows if there are any other problems.

[TCD]

If you put code tags around your instructions the smileis would say good-bye

Hi guys,

Thanks for following up on that, I was looking for a 3.5 floppy for my PC and finally found it. I'm very close now, I creeated two adf files for my disk one for tracks 0-39 the other from 40-79.
I have both ADF files on my PC now but I need to merge them together in one ADF.

I tried using WinUAE and the command mentioned above:

COPY /B DF0_1.adf+DF0_2.adf+DF0_3.adf DF0.adf

But it seems that Copy doesnt understand that command, There should be a way to merge two ADF files together, anybody?

[turrican3]

look the link http://winuaehelp.back2roots.org/started/transdisk.htm
it seems the copy command must be done in the pc dos not amiga dos

[Retro-Nerd]

Yes, start the DOS promt and use this command on the PC side.

[prowler]

Hi Auday,

As turrican3 says, you need to enter the command in PC DOS, not AmigaDOS.

But change your command line to:

COPY /B DF0_1.adf /B DF0_2.adf /B DF0_3.adf DF0.adf

This will join DF0_1.adf and DF0_2.adf together to give the file DF0_3.adf

hey guys, thanks a lot for all your help!
The game is salvaged and it's fully running on my PC now, it took me 3 hours to finish it (with unlimited lifes). I dont know how to post screen shots here, but I'll try to put something on my website.

[TCD]

Great news Auday Looking forward to see your game
To use screenshots you can either attach them to a post (scroll down a bit when replying and you find the button 'Manage Attachments') or you could upload them to an image host (http://www.imageshack.us for example) and use the img tags like this :

[img ]http://www.imageshack.us/ab123/example.png[/img]
Delete the space after the 'g' to make it work

Oh and can you tell us where to find your website?

[mihcael]

maybe?? http://www.mesopotamia.ca/