Found broken floppies of these (Part 1)

[dirkies]

as I do not know where to look for the "latest TOSEC release" (?) yes please, zone if possible

[mai]

...done.

[dirkies]

aye Thanks bud

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

we could compare the broken floppy version of Powerstyx on the scoopex iso's on the ftp with mine, as I still think the broken ADF on the scoopex ISO is just missing the bootblock. I wonder what happens if the BS1 bootblock is put on this broken ADF?!

Now you can find out!

I have replaced Disk Blocks 0-5 of the broken ADF with those from the PowerStyx+ 100% disk you sent me and uploaded it to The Zone for you to try.

[dirkies]

still at work, can you tell us already what you see when it gets launched?

[StingRay]

Shows the Bamiga Sector One crack intro and freezes. Not really surprising though.

[prowler]

I haven't launched it yet, but I would not really have expected anything else, tbh.

Certainly worth a try though!

[dirkies]

argh, I do remember that it read the bootblock and went straight into some "turbo" mode/VERY fast skipping trackloader, showing some nice blueish logo on a black background in the meantime. So it seems that was still another version!

So did you already hook up the kryoflux to give the 5.25" disk a readout try?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

So did you already hook up the kryoflux to give the 5.25" disk a readout try?

No, I still have three more 5¼-inch drives I want to try with the Black Label Demo Disk 8 on the Catweasel, so I doubt if I'll have time to get the KryoFlux set up today.

I want to exhaust the possibilities with the Catweasel first, because it's the better tool when there is more than one bad sector on a track and it takes fewer retries.

I have no choice with the PowerStyx+ 100% disk, but I prefer to use the KryoFlux only when I know which tracks to concentrate on.

[dirkies]

you may also try to copy the disk on real Amiga hardware using any MFM capable copier, or the powercopy tool dlfrsilver mentioned, seems to do a good job too.

All you need to know is some feedback of the program during copy that it actually is reading out ok. All I remember is MFM 4489, Rattlecopy & Xcopy & Acopy could copy this disk back in 1988 (and later) so it should not be too hard.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

you may also try to copy the disk on real Amiga hardware using any MFM capable copier, or the powercopy tool dlfrsilver mentioned, seems to do a good job too.

Yes, I have considered using the PowerCopy cracked version to dump the disk to track files on my Amiga, but I would need someone else (Denis? ) to write these to an eADF in WinUAE because the version I use doesn't support that.

Originally Posted by dirkies

All you need to know is some feedback of the program during copy that it actually is reading out ok. All I remember is MFM 4489, Rattlecopy & Xcopy & Acopy could copy this disk back in 1988 (and later) so it should not be too hard.

Of course, I could always copy the 5¼-inch disk to 3½-inch by any of these methods and mail the copy to someone else.

[dirkies]

If you have a 100% working copy of this disk you can always use WarpMFM as we used to do it back in the days, to have a file version of this disk! Or as you say, send the disk to dlfrsilver for some powercopy expertise

[prowler]

This evening I tried the PowerStyx+ 100% disk in a 5¼-inch high density disk drive attached to KryoFlux, and dumped a raw image of cylinders 0-82 using the command line:

dtc -fPS100/PS100.raw -s0 -e82 -i2

I have no previous experience of using the raw image dump feature, but there didn't seem to be any problem reading the disk.

However, while the resulting image file appears to be corrupted in places, there seems to be a fair amount of valid data included.

I've uploaded a copy to The Zone for anyone who wishes to take a look.

[prowler]

I guess I'll try to dump the PowerStyx disk with PowerCopy cracked next.

That might give me a better idea whether the disk is being read correctly.

The KryoFlux DTC produced no error messages, save for a question mark at the end of the console output for two or three tracks, but the raw disk image is hardly conclusive.

[dirkies]

afaik this disk is 80 tracks, so no need to read beyond track 79!

How do I write this raw image back into a floppy?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

afaik this disk is 80 tracks, so no need to read beyond track 79!

Thanks for the info! I chose 83 tracks only because that is the maximum number the TEAC FD-55GFR 142-U floppy drive I was using can access, and I didn't want to omit anything useful from the image.

Originally Posted by dirkies

How do I write this raw image back into a floppy?

AFAIK, it can be written back to a floppy with KryoFlux, but first I'd like to be certain that the image is a good one.

The only reason I uploaded it was to allow anyone with knowledge of this type of disk image to have a look at it and post any comment they might wish to make in this thread.

To be honest, if I'd noticed that this disk image was not the standard 11 sectors per track format, then I would not have volunteered to recover it, for it doesn't interest me at all to do so.

However, now that I have it here I'll give it my best shot and the next step is to dump it too track files on my Amiga using PowerCopy cracked as this, presumably, will give a much better indication of whether the disk can be read properly.

If this is successful, then anyone can write it back to a floppy by the same method, or to an extended ADF in WinUAE.

[dirkies]

it could well be the original 5.25" floppy is just fine, I just never archived it as I had not the knowledge back in those days to save an MFM image to a file for DVD-archiving.
All other MFM games I had were released by other crackers in normal readable format so could be archived. This powerstyx+100% one was the only game I never found elsewhere so I kept the 5.25" floppy until the day I would find a way to archive it correctly
I will see to fire up my A500 soon and check if the recovered floppy rewritten with Kryoflux works on real hardware.
Keep up the good work Prowler, and if you run into Powercopy issues, I am sure Dlfrsilver will give us a helping hand too

[dirkies]

any update of Powercopy vs Powerstyx yet?

[prowler]

I will set up my A1200 to run PowerCopy with a 5¼-inch floppy drive when I have dismantled the PC I shall start building tomorrow to dump snc's Kyocera KC 30B hard disk.

It will take me a while to get started with PowerCopy, but I'm not anticipating any problems with that disk. I have checked the PowerStyx floppy following the discovery of stain damage on the Black Label Demo Disk 8, and I'm pleased to say that it's in very good condition.

[dirkies]

just checking out here on the Powerstyx 100% adventure...