Looking for Sierra's The Black Cauldron DMS/ADF *uncracked*

[mk1]

Hi,

anyone got an original copy of this game and could DMS or ADF it for me? I just got the game off fleabay and of course the disk is full of R/W errors.

Thanks!

[prowler]

Hi mk1,

If nobody else has this game and your disk is not afflicted with mould growth (i.e. the floppy drive makes no squealing noise when the disk spins up), then you're welcome to send it to me and I'll see if I can rescue it for you with my equipment.

[StingRay]

The game is protected (Herndon HLS) which means an uncracked version will not help you as it will not work correctly.

[prowler]

Hmm... then I probably can't rescue it either.

Thanks for the info, StingRay.

[dlfrsilver]

writing the game from IPF and kryoflux on fresh disks is the option

[mk1]

Man, I got a bad feeling this disk screwed up a couple of my drives even though there's no visible fault (mould... could it be something else?) in it. The drives reading the disk sounded like pure evil. Never heard a disk drive make such high pitched screeches or what ever. Despite this the disk did show up its contents but now my drives complain about almost every other disk...

Anyway, returning to the subject, the Sierra quick start guide does state that one should be able to make a back up copy of the disk so I guess they meant it to be copyable? Although I do believe what StringRay says as well...

So, IPF & kryoflux... could someone open those up a bit more?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by mk1

Man, I got a bad feeling this disk screwed up a couple of my drives even though there's no visible fault (mould... could it be something else?) in it. The drives reading the disk sounded like pure evil. Never heard a disk drive make such high pitched screeches or what ever. Despite this the disk did show up its contents but now my drives complain about almost every other disk...

That high-pitched screeching noise is almost certainly caused by mould growth on the magnetic recording layer of the disk - even if it's invisible to the naked eye.

The disk drives affected will need to have the heads carefully, but thoroughly, cleaned with isopropyl alcohol (IPA) to restore them to full working order.

In the meantime, don't insert any other disk in the drives to avoid spreading the contamination.

It's possible that the disk can be restored too by prising apart the disk enclosure enough to remove the floppy disk within, and rubbing the surface with a lint-free cloth wetted with a little IPA to remove the mould, afterwards replacing it.

[DDNI]

I have access to a kyroflux. Let me know if I can help.
I have rescued original disks by carefully opening them and replacing the magnetic media inside.

[mk1]

Ouch! Now this sounds pretty bad, but at least one of the drives seems to work again. The other one I need to open and clean it seems.

I'll get back to this in the morning. Will send the disk to whomever wants to try fix it.

As for future reference, is there a way to see or hear if a disk is mouldy before the damage is done?

And one more thing: is it possible to clean or format and re-use the mouldy disk if I'd like to keep the original "mastered" disk? I'd hate to throw away the disk with the original Sierra label and replace it with a plain (cracked) copy.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by mk1

As for future reference, is there a way to see or hear if a disk is mouldy before the damage is done?

A lot of the time, there will be no visible evidence of mould growth on the disk's surface, and the only way you can safeguard your best drives from damage is to try each new disk that is of doubtful quality in a drive reserved just for that purpose and ejecting the disk very quickly if tell-tale noises are heard.

Originally Posted by mk1

And one more thing: is it possible to clean or format and re-use the mouldy disk if I'd like to keep the original "mastered" disk? I'd hate to throw away the disk with the original Sierra label and replace it with a plain (cracked) copy.

Yes.

Originally Posted by prowler

It's possible that the disk can be restored too by prising apart the disk enclosure enough to remove the floppy disk within, and rubbing the surface with a lint-free cloth wetted with a little IPA to remove the mould, afterwards replacing it.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by mk1

Man, I got a bad feeling this disk screwed up a couple of my drives even though there's no visible fault (mould... could it be something else?) in it. The drives reading the disk sounded like pure evil. Never heard a disk drive make such high pitched screeches or what ever. Despite this the disk did show up its contents but now my drives complain about almost every other disk...

The heads of your drives are dirty, just clean them. I heard this evil sound lots of time when imaging disks, it's nothing unusual and no reason to worry.

Originally Posted by mk1

Anyway, returning to the subject, the Sierra quick start guide does state that one should be able to make a back up copy of the disk so I guess they meant it to be copyable? Although I do believe what StringRay says as well...

There is a protection track on the disk which the (encrypted) executable checks, if that track isn't there decryption will not work (because vital data is missing) and the game will not run for obvious reasons. Backup copy: yes, working backup copy: no.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by mk1

Man, I got a bad feeling this disk screwed up a couple of my drives even though there's no visible fault (mould... could it be something else?) in it. The drives reading the disk sounded like pure evil. Never heard a disk drive make such high pitched screeches or what ever. Despite this the disk did show up its contents but now my drives complain about almost every other disk...

Anyway, returning to the subject, the Sierra quick start guide does state that one should be able to make a back up copy of the disk so I guess they meant it to be copyable? Although I do believe what StringRay says as well...

So, IPF & kryoflux... could someone open those up a bit more?

buy a floppy disk cleaner on ebay, you'll see it's very usefull and the drives are back to life

It happened to me with an original.... whale's voyage AGA english release

[mk1]

Looks like I managed to pull this one off. After cleaning the drive heads and the disk surface with some proper IPA spraying I loosened the disks covers and the shutter which seemed to cause some of the spinning/jamming problems.

I then tried the disk again and the "bad" reading and spinning noises were gone but I still got some read errors on some 30 sectors.

Next, I decided to try and make a copy of the disk with X-Copy, which suddenly read and copied the disk flawlessly. I tried the original again and voila, it now works fine with all the problems vanished!

I don't know if it was all the things I did or just some, but going through all the sectors of the disk with X-Copy somehow fixed things.

Thanks for help everyone! I think I still need to get one of those floppy disk cleaner kits for future use.

Edit: And like StingRay pointed out, the copy didn't work of course. But what's the point in Sierra suggesting backing up in their reference card?

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by mk1

Edit: And like StingRay pointed out, the copy didn't work of course. But what's the point in Sierra suggesting backing up in their reference card?

They probably used the same manual for the Amiga&PC version of the game. PC version either is unprotected or just uses a manual check. And technically you could of course copy the disk, they didn't claim that your "backup copy" will work flawlessly.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by mk1

...I then tried the disk again and the "bad" reading and spinning noises were gone but I still got some read errors on some 30 sectors.

Next, I decided to try and make a copy of the disk with X-Copy, which suddenly read and copied the disk flawlessly. I tried the original again and voila, it now works fine with all the problems vanished!

I don't know if it was all the things I did or just some, but going through all the sectors of the disk with X-Copy somehow fixed things.

The luck was with you today!

Just "exercising" a disk can sometimes bring it back to life.

If it's going to happen, it usually takes several days, but on this occasion it was probably the other things you did first to clean the drive heads and disk surface and loosen the shutter that helped considerably.