Extended ADF

[mailman]

I am in possession of Amiga Action cover disks (in ADF) which are a little "extended". They are 923684 bytes in size. I cannot read their contents (I read ADF's contents with FAT95 package) nor put it back to floppy disk. How to handle them?

[BippyM]

THey are most likely protected disks...

What's on them?

[Codetapper]

Unfortunately most coverdisks on PlanetEmu (and TOSEC) have been stored as 82 track ADFs. Completely pointless, as the last 2 tracks are just duplicate sectors of the previous ones. Whoever imaged them didn't have the any idea what they were doing.

If your FAT95 program requires 901120 byte ADFs you could try downloading a program like Grab on the Amiga side which you can do this kind of thing:

grab AAdiskbig.adf AAdisk.adf FIRST 901120

And the output file will now be the first 901120 bytes. There are many other tools you can use instead, but after the ADFs are the correct size they should transfer easily.

[andreas]

Imaging them with 82 tracks is pointless if and only if they're not protected. As you should know, many of them are and at least fetch some data from track 80, for instance.

Especially non-pros cannot always determine whether the thing is protected or not and do not want to run into big surprises; hence they go the safe way and dump'em all.

[Codetapper]

Bollocks.

Any games that use more than 80 tracks (incidentally Andreas, I bet you can't name me a single game) are custom MFM encoded disks which won't appear as AmigaDOS anyway.

To further prove my point, the program that created these couldn't even read those last 2 tracks which is why you get duplicate data from track 79 (and an AmigaDOS disk has 80 tracks numbered 0 to 79). Please leave any disk format questions to the pros!

[mailman]

I noticed that they are 2 tracks longer but I did not know which tracks. I tried to compare them but I have not seen anything special at least in the first 40 tracks. Thanks for the information that it is the last two tracks. I will cut them and try.

@bippym

Like Codetapper said, they are not protected.

[BippyM]

@mailman

So I see

Though there are quite a few protected coverdisks.. hence my suggestion

[andreas]

Though there are quite a few protected coverdisks.. hence my suggestion

And that's exactly what I was referring to, so no reason to call it "bollocks" Codetapper!

Any games that use more than 80 tracks (incidentally Andreas, I bet you can't name me a single game)

After testing, I surely can. But as you call what I said "bollocks" - being a nice guy as always - I have not the slightest will to do so. And no, I am not refusing just because I am soooo fearful to maybe get proved wrong.

Cannon Fodder special mission disk would be a good example for a protected coverdisk that *might* use more than 80 tracks. OK if it doesn't you're lucky, but probably have to remove the protection from another part of the disk.

The only argument where you *might* have a true point is that it's a bit expensive to manufacture a cover disk with > 80 tracks as you must have an external machine or a heavily modified Amiga floppy drive (?) to do this.
Yet I would NOT dare say it's "impossible."

Please leave any disk format questions to the pros!

I'm about to smell a decent spice of superstitiousness.

[Codetapper]

Almost everything you said above is wrong Andreas. What you said is bollocks, I stand by my comment.

It is not expensive to duplicate a coverdisk with more than 80 tracks, but not all drives can read them so you would have to be pretty stupid to do so. You don't need a "heavily modified Amiga drive" at all. Most drives can read past track 80.

I don't have Cannon Fodder special mission disk but I can guess it's custom MFM, just like most Sensi games. You cannot make an ADF out of it. You would get an almost blank file 901120 bytes in length, or longer if you decide to be real clever and image 82 blank tracks instead of 80 blank tracks.

These are the same morons that used to DMS up original MFM games and the DMS file would end up about 2kb in length. They would usually spew forth the drivel along the lines of "This game compressed really well!" No shit. A bootblock followed by 1 million zeros tends to compress very well.

To reiterate, you do not know what you are talking about regarding disks so please just stop talking crap as you will no doubt confuse others. Leave disk related questions to the WHDLoad crackers, the CAPS team etc.

[dlfrsilver]

you can try RAWREAD, but it's 50/50. It works on some games, and not on others.

[BippyM]

okay could the following be true?

Cody sent me a disk of a sneak preview of an unreleased game for me to dump.

When put in the drive the disk comes up as a blank 836kb (standard ofs formatted disk).

The disk doesn't boot so I assume it is blank..

COULD it be custom MFM?

[dlfrsilver]

what is the name of the game ?

[thomas]

COULD it be custom MFM?

No. Custom MFM means it is not readable by trackdisk.device and would appear as unreadable or unformatted on the Workbench.

Some (cracked) games used trackdisk.device to load the data but didn't show up as files on Workbench. In either case the disk must boot so that the custom loader can take up its work. If there is no custom boot block, then there is no custom loader and no matter if the disk is recorded with custom MFM or trackdisk MFM, there is nobody who can read it.

If the disk is not bootable and appears to be empty, then it *is* empty. Maybe it *was* custom MFM and some stupid guy tried to make an ADF or DMS of it and wrote the bad ADF or DMS back to floppy, so now the floppy is bad, too.

[Codetapper]

Actually you can disguise a full game to look like it's on an almost "blank" disk.

All you need is a custom bootblock to load the game, and a couple of tracks formatted as AmigaDOS (possibly just track 40) with an "empty" directory structure and you can pack the game around the rest of the disk.

When the disk is put in when loaded from Workbench it will look like a blank disk. When booted it would load the bootblock. You could easily disguise disk 2 from a multi-disk game to make it look completely empty, but if you imaged it then compressed it you would be able to tell it's full of data (unless the rest of the disk is MFM).

Quite a few games like Rodland have a "fake" startup-sequence which says "this disk is virus infected" when it boots, so if the bootblock is ever destroyed by a virus, the fake AmigaDOS section of the disk will kick in and inform you. Very neat imho!

[BippyM]

I'll assume the disk is blank (I thought as much tbh).. Thanks guys...

[andreas]

What you said is bollocks, I stand by my comment.

It is not expensive to duplicate a coverdisk with more than 80 tracks, but not all drives can read them so you would have to be pretty stupid to do so. You don't need a "heavily modified Amiga drive" at all. Most drives can read past track 80.

Your general problem Codetapper is, that you never LISTEN 'til the end.
You're much too impatient, reading half, thinking you understood it all and then shouting around "bollocks!" and other stuff.-

Did I say anything about *READING* a disk on user's machine?
It was about *PRODUCING* such a disk (factory-side)!!!!
And I do state my point that you need an external machine or a heavily modified Amiga drive to *produce* such a disk. As even SPS write on their side that game producing firms used special machines to create disks which are hard to duplicate on an end-user system. (purpose!)

Reading is another story, sure thing most drives can read disks that access tracks beyond 79. And I haven't ever doubted this.

To reiterate, you do not know what you are talking about regarding disks so please just stop talking crap as you will no doubt confuse others.

So will I? I appreciate your concern, racking *my* brains so I do not have to do it myself! Ah nice of you!
You know what? I will "stop talking crap", promised! ... under one condition: that you promise to read the whole post henceforth, not just half of it and not shouting your beloved "bollocks" until you have read the VERY LAST word in the post. Be it a deal?

Yet I doubt this will ever happen, as you're much too self-asserted of your "professionality".

[Codetapper]

Someone close this thread please. Otherwise I will have to endure Andreas posting ad finitum about stuff he knows (practically) nothing about since he must have the last word...

The post above is more bollocks btw, and I did read it right to the end

[Galahad/FLT]

@ Andreas: There are one or two games that use copy protection from tracks 80-82 but I cannot remember what they were.

The reason there is only a couple out there is solely because its unreliable. Sure, 'most' drives will read to track 82, but then that leaves 'some' drives that can't, and when you are talking about critical data, it is important that 'all' drives can read the data.

I can assure you (and the SPS team can verify this), that 99.9999999% of all Amiga games used tracks 0-79 and didn't use tracks 80-82.

Coverdisks are even less likely to use these tracks because again, the publisher wants the game to work on as many drives as possible, otherwise its a wasted covermount.

And the reason why some coverdisks were protected, was to ensure that the likes of Fairlight, Quartex etc, actually cracked them so they got spread even further thus garnering even more free publicity.

[andreas]

Thanks Galahad.

The reason there is only a couple out there is solely because its unreliable. Sure, 'most' drives will read to track 82, but then that leaves 'some' drives that can't, and when you are talking about critical data, it is important that 'all' drives can read the data.

I see clearer now.
BTW, game "Demolition" from 1987 does use track 80. I have the original. Also Typhoon Thompson shows '80' in WinUAE, yet I'd be careful asserting the game to actually use the track...

See Codetapper?
That's the proper way to DISCUSS.
Shouting "bollocks" at somebody - no matter how wrong he is! - shows your non-ability to participate a discussion, as your discussion partner will most probably call it quits and beat it. I told you many many times you should stop calling other people's statements bollocks, but you didn't care a fuck.

You seem to me as a proletarian who first shouts out loud, then starts thinking. I did make this mistake in my childhood by saying "bollocks!" in a discussion. You know what answer I got? "End of discussion, if I talk "bollocks" I need no longer discuss with you, need I".
I hope everyone "discussing" with you will do that henceforth, because this behavior is just barefaced. Otherwise you'll never learn.

[IFW]

I can confirm that Galahad is right.
99.999% of anything commercial ever released on the Amiga was professionally duplicated.
It was simply more economical that way and was dirt cheap.

Still is the same today.

Now it's high time to close the thread