Some good news, everyone!

[MethodGit]

I am finally able to transfer my own Amiga disks collection! Hurrah!

I bought a floppy drive on Tuesday, and eventually got it fitted in. The reason for this is I am using DISK2FDI to do my transferring.

However, I appear to have a problem with some disks in particular. They look like they transfer perfectly, but upon close examination (i.e. copying the files to hard-disk, reading the startup-sequence), I have noticed several errors on some of the disks. For example, my Populous 2 disk runs perfectly, but when you try to copy the files to HD, you discover that the ADF is peppered to the brim with checksum errors on the majority of the files! And I doubt it could be my disk, it has known to be quite perfect before. Is it something to do with DISK2FDI being faulty in some aspects? Should I keep trying to transfer the disk till I get a good image?

Also, some games upon loading either crash or do other things. My Baby Jo original was known to run perfectly on my real Amiga, but when I try to start the game on the main menu, it immediately returns to the title screen after a split second!

Also, some disks have some kind of protection code. My Amiga Action coverdisk of Blues Brothers (remember in '95, they gave the full game away in their April issue), asks me to phone up Comic Relief to receive an activation code. And my originals of Captain Dynamo and Quest Of Agravain also ask for activation codes, but you only get that if you're playing from a copy of the game, and they must think that my ADFs are copies. And finally,I have a couple of coverdisks (Amiga Action and AUI) that have a competition thing on them in which you are asked some questions and you're meant to get them right in order to receive a code/a congratulations/whatever. Maybe I can get a code-cracking expert (*hint* *hint* Codetapper *hint* *hint*) to try and crack these code/question-asking disks... Do you think so?

Finally, I have some disks which simply do not work in emulation at all, or at least have crashes/other problems during the game. Damn.

Oh well, at least some disks came out perfectly in all aspects. I shall post these ones of the ADF Zone for you, then, to start off.

Peace!

[RetroMan]

So ?? Where´s the good news then ???

[[idoru]]

I can't really comment on Disk2fdi as I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure there are some issues with it - there always is with new things.

The Blues Brothers disk on Amiga Action was a way of trying to get people to donate money to Comic Relief - they donate, they get the game. Someone somewhere must know the code I guess, it's the kinda thing someone would've written down on their disk label for future reference. Hopefully, it'll turn up some day.

The others that you mention sound like the Mortal Kombat II Competition Disk which was another Amiga Action one. It had a quiz on it where you answered the questions for a competition for something I forget - MK2 related I guess You could also take the disk into Future Zone shops (in the UK) where you would get £10 off the purchase price of MK2.

Would be interesting if someone could "break the codes" tho

Finally, I have some disks which simply do not work in emulation at all, or at least have crashes/other problems during the game. Damn.

These are possibly emulation issues. Hopefully in time WinUAE etc. will run them

Disk2FDI has been RUMOURED to screw up your disks, so the reason they didn't transfer properly could have been due to the disks being screwed up in the process

I suggest you check out the original disks and make sure they still work

Could you upload these Activation Code games Marz? I wouldn't mind looking at them

[TikTok]

I could be wrong (so I probably am ) but I seem to recall reading that the method disk2FDI uses means each time you dump a disk, the result could be slightly different. Can't remember the specifics, something to do with the timing (or lack therefore) perhaps. I remember someone said disk2FDI wouldnt be a way of producing true copies of the original. Probably just another rumour, but has anyone tried dumping a disk twice and doing a hex compare?

I haven't tried dumping the same image twice (which seems like a very good idea...Someone do it! )

Samurai: I did say I used the program before, and it did supposedly screw up a couple of my games

The reason I say it's RUMOURED to screw up disks by writing index pulses to your source disk is because those disks worked before I ran them through Disk2FDI. It could have been luck, so I'm really not sure

I have used Disk2FDI several times for making adf's of coverdisks... Only a few ones couldn't be 'adffed'... But in general the program runs perfect!

And if you write protect your original disk how can a program like Disk2FDI screw up your disk then?? Just wondering...

I know it's weird, but the way it supposedly reads from your disks, it doesn't matter whether or not your disk is write protected

But, this must all be a lie since you all seem to be having good experiences with it, and I must've just gotten lucky with my disks screwing up

I've dumped about 200 fd until now, and no one has been screwed up by disk2fdi (dump the disk - boot into A500 - verify while dumping another disk etc.). It's really an urban legend. Btw, I've noticed that some windows progs like screensavers can mess up the dump process (wow, what a multitasking feature...): so, I advice you to launch it in pure dos.

[Codetapper]

Hi guys

I've checked out both games (Captain Dynamo (which is just called Dynamo I believe) and Quest of Argavain), and the originals both (should) have a Rob Northen copylock track. The game brings up that "Codemasters" pic, then reads the copylock track. If all is OK, it then loads the main game. If it fails, it asks for that activation code stuff.

Anyway both of these are very basic to crack, I will upload cracked versions if people want them (I just trick it into thinking the copylock was there so you never get asked for the code, it just loads) but I was led to believe other people have cracks of these games already so I wasn't going to bother. Simply replacing the file VC with a slightly altered one is enough to crack both games.

Yell if you want me to do a crack fix for them - I don't want to spend time cracking them and find some bugger uploads them in the meantime!

Doing the WHDLoad slaves is different (Bored Seal has done Dynamo and I have almost completed Quest).

BTW I would not trust Disk2FDI myself after these comments from you guys, much better if you have an Amiga with a cable to your PC to image on the Amiga and copy across. At least you can guarantee a working image unless the physical disk is knackered.

[Codetapper]

I found a cheat mode in the game while doing the high score save routine. No doubt this will appear on all the other cheat sites with credit removed

On the title screen, type in YOUVEHADTHISPLACEREDECORATED and then hit enter and start retyping it again. After a few keys it will fade in a blank screen and say "I don't like it!" and the cheat mode is active.

Infinite lives are now yours and keys 1-4 jump to relevant levels.

There may be other keys but that's all I've noticed so far...

I checked out these games, and they suck (especially the Quest one)

But. For those of you who have action replay's handy, and want to see the game, when you get to the password screen (where you actually type your password), freeze, then type whichever line for the game you want

Captain Dynamo (The title screen says it's called Dynamo)
---------------------

^15B6 MOVE.L 24E0(PC),D1

Quest Of Agravin
---------------------

^785DA MOVE.L 793FE(PC),D1

Exit out of Action Replay. Type whatever you want at the protection screen and the game will load. I have no idea if this will work on any Amiga's, but it should be fine.

I couldn't alter the ADF since the game is compressed (?) and I'm not exactly sure how to deal with these situations...Can anyone help me out here? I know what to change now, but how do I go about actually writing this back to disk....The byte sequence I see in memory is not on the disk (hence why I think it's compressed)

[Twistin'Ghost]

Lords knows why these companies insisted on creating conflicts like this, but in case some are wondering why the game is known as Captain Dynamo when the title screen says Dynamo, it's because the box actually calls it Captain Dynamo. As thus...


Removed: Box scan

[Amiga1992]

'Instantly adictive'? Does the game has a free bonus heroin shot inside?

[Codetapper]

AmigaBoy: You are right, the game is compressed. The bootblock loads the file VC and relocates it to $20000. Then the first thing it does is decrunch the protection screen (look for "CHFI" - that is the Imploder header changed from "IMP!") over itself so it's at $20000 - then it copies itself to $78000 which is where you hit your button and found the code to break the protection.

Incidentally the location you found to crack it isn't the best place since you are still asked for a code which is annoying. At around $78100 there are about 8 or 9 bsr's in a row - about 3rd from bottom it runs the copylock check - so remove that (RTS in the copylock routine). Then the next routine checks the key returned from the copylock - it's something like move.l 4(a1),d0 and cmp.l #$7dd5dd89,d0 (I'm going from memory here, those numbers will be wrong for sure). The next line beq (hex $61) change to a bra (hex $60) so it always thinks you have the original and won't ask for the code

Anyway the point of all this is if you want to do a nasty crack on either of these 2 games, grab the memory from the "CHFI" header, decrunch it, hack those bytes to crack it, then File Imploder that data back and put the header back as "CHFI". Now copy that hacked imploded bit over the original (it should be almost the same size if not exactly) and save it back as VC. Now cracked

ah. I see

The reason I did the code screen rather than the actual copy check was because manual protection screens are pretty standard, so I thought why not just do that

Thanks Codetapper. That's very useful. I'll delve into it a bit more

[Warlock99]

I've heard all these rumours about disk2fdi too, such as a rumour about the index pulses making an exact copy impossible.

I think that problem is overcome by using two floppy drives, don't ask me how though! I remember speaking to icy about it some time ago and i think he concluded that it should work ok on cracked games but protected games could be problematic.

[MethodGit]

Say Tappy (do you mind being called that?), do you think you could possibly upload your modified versions of both Codemasters games? They might come in handy should I want to play the games on backup disks for my real Amiga.

[Twistin'Ghost]

[Amiga1992]

He's back, Twistin :/