Ultima VI - PROGRAM disk booting to black screen

[solarmon]

Hi,

I recently acquired an original big box Ultima VI with original 3 disks and manuals.

Initially I had a problem with the INSTALL disk - it had a missing bootblock and would not boot up and was not recognised by Workbench as an AmigaDOS disk, so I used X-Copy to install a bootable bootblock on it.

The INSTALL disk then booted OK and I was able to install the game on to 4 blank formatted disks.

However, the created PROGRAM disk boots first to a AmigaDOS shell window screen and then it tried to load the game but it seems to go to a black screen and stays like that.

This happens on both an A500+ (1MB chip ram); and also an A1200 (2MB chip + 4MB fast), even when degraded to use OCS and with CPU buffers disabled.

I've used X-Copy CheckDisk to verify that the orginal 3 disks and the created 4 game disks are all OK - no errors.

Has anybody come across this issue and been able to resolve it?

[DamienD]

I haven't seen that problem; in WinUAE I use this set:

... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 1 of 4)(Program)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip
... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 2 of 4)(Populace)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip
... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 3 of 4)(Player)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip
... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 4 of 4)(Portrait)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by DamienD

I haven't seen that problem; in WinUAE I use this set:

... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 1 of 4)(Program)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip
... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 2 of 4)(Populace)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip
... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 3 of 4)(Player)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip
... Ultima VI - The False Prophet v1.12 (1992)(Origin)(Disk 4 of 4)(Portrait)[cr Panther][FD installed].zip

Yes, I know I could use the (cracked) ADF, or WHDLoad version.

I just wanted to try to get my original version working.

[BarryB]

ADF's made from official IPF #0294 in The Zone!

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by BarryB

ADF's made from official IPF #0294 in The Zone!

Thanks. I'll use those ADFs to compare against my physical copy. I'd be interested in what the bootblock is for the INSTALL disk, as on my one it was somehow missing/corrupt.

[solarmon]

Just looked at the bootblock of the INSTALL disk ADF - and it has just a normal 'dos.library' bootblock - which is what I had to install on my original INSTALL disk to get it to boot.

What is the best way to compare two AmigaDOS disks (ADF and physical) to see whether they are the same or not, other than loading them in to DirOpus and checking each file?

[Retro-Nerd]

Make a disk image of your physical copy and compare the CRC32/MD5 checksum with the other ADF image. The checksum should be exactly the same, if both game disks are the same and unaltered.

Drag'n Drop Browser check

https://emn178.github.io/online-tool..._checksum.html

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Make a disk image of your physical copy and compare the CRC32/MD5 checksum with the other ADF image. The checksum should be exactly the same, if both game disks are the same and unaltered.

Drag'n Drop Browser check

https://emn178.github.io/online-tool..._checksum.html

Thanks.

Using the FF on Gotek in DF1, I cloned the 3 ADF disks. I then used X-Copy to copy from the physical disks in DF0 to DF1 for each.

In Windows, the two DATA disks had the same CRC-32 checksum. However, the INSTALL disk had a different CRC-32 checksum.

I'll probably end up copy the ADF version on my INSTALL disk anyways, but
I'll want to see which file has changed or is missing - so I will compare them in DirOpus.

Does DirOpus or the Amiga have any checksum tools? I'll have a look on Aminet.

[BarryB]

The bootblock on the Install disk should be a standard bootblock, VirusZ identifies it as a workbench 1.3 bootblock.

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by BarryB

The bootblock on the Install disk should be a standard bootblock, VirusZ identifies it as a workbench 1.3 bootblock.

Yes. The bootblock was missing on my original INSTALL disk - so I used X-Copy to install it back.

OK - so some good news and some bad news.

I copied the INSTALL ADF to my original INSTALL disk, which failed on a verify on the first attempt, but was OK on the second.

During the install to floppy, this time round I was getting disk block errors on the INSTALL disk, and also on the target PORTRAIT and POPULACE disk, which I didn't have the first time I tried it.

However, the PROGRAM disk did boot and I got the intro scenes.

I won't continue to use these installed disks as there were errors during the install which will rear its head later on. So I'll just have to keep trying until I get a clean install that boots!