Split .DMS files - splicing them back together

[Phiber]

Ok, i have a slight snag about my latest downloads..

Found a few programs which are in a standard .DMS format, but are split in two.. Is there an easy way to "glue" them back together again, to make a single .DMS which in turn can be transferred into ADF? (preferably in M$ WinBlows)

Correct me, if i'm wrong, but when using the DMS-packer on the amiga-side, it is possible to save the disksides independently, like tracks 0-39 and 40-79.. but how to determine which actual tracks were compressed into the split .dms file? (in case the tracks aren't the ones used on default splitting)are there any programs for detecting or managing this?

I know there is always the "long way around" by first transferring the .DMS's to either real amiga or doing some fancy WinUAE trickery, and writing the disksides back to one complete file/disk (through trial and error) and after that repacking it back, but it's sooo timeconsuming and somewhat tiresome..

Any ideas?

[Twistin'Ghost]

I really don't think you're gonna be able to do what you want to do from Windows, sorry. The two tools for handling DMS files on the PC aren't built for what you call 'split DMS files'.

The reason these files are in this state in the first place is because the compressed disks are filled with already compressed data in the first place. When DMS attempts to compress it, the size ends up bigger. The size of a disk (901k) will not fit on a disk via AmigaDOS anyhow. Back in the day, there were many folks who were still living their lives in the floppy disk realm, so two unique DMS files were created so these files could still be archived on (or even downloaded to) floppy disks.

If you want them un'DMS'd to floppy/ADF, you'll have to do so from AmigaDOS. If using AmigaDOS is just too much of a bother for you, up the files to the Zone and I will make ADF's of them for you.

[Codetapper]

All the DMS archives I've seen are either split 50/50 (tracks 0-39 in one archive and 40-79 in the other) or are a whole disk with a trainer archive which goes over the original.

The easiest way to put these back to normal ADF's in WinUAE would be to download fms from Aminet. That will let you mount fake floppies as FF0: which are much faster than accessing DF0: etc.

Then you can issue commands like this:

DMS WRITE Superfrog_A.dms FF0:
DMS WRITE Superfrog_B.dms FF0:
Diskwiz FF0: Superfrog.adf

You can use many tools to convert the FF0: device back to a normal ADF - I only chose DiskWiz since I wrote it :-)

You can setup Dopus to help you automate these tasks by simply unpacking an archive to the FF0: device. Unpack all the disks then convert it back to an ADF and your task is complete!

If possible I would format/blank out the ADF before writing the DMS archives to it just in case there are a few tracks missing from the archives. Otherwise you could get leftovers from a previous disk on the ADF (very unlikely though).

[IFW]

Just undms the files with any tool you like, then join them with any tool you like (even the console copy command is able to do that). Watch out for the correct order when joining the files.
Couldn't be easier.

Lol how do i even open a a DMS file Im kinda new to amiga emu's and its been years since i use a amiga.

I know its something with xdms.exe file but i have no clue what to do with it.

[IFW]

Just enter:

xdms

for the help...

[Phiber]

Hmmh..

Ok.. these replies somewhat solidified my original thoughts about this.. didn't know about FMS though.. and when it comes to xdms, i rather use ADFOpus, because it uses xdms for converting to ADF/ADZ and it has a GUI to handle things.. maybe i'll pester the author about it..