Found broken floppies of these (Part 2)

[dirkies]

as already mention in another game REQ thread, my kryoflux has been doing overtime during these hot summernights after finding in the basement 2 forgotten floppy boxes under pile of dust; and still some left in irrecoverable bit rot state
these disks cannot to be found in TOSEC or in collections I downloaded, so will try here

The 2 screenshots come from floppies which could at least be recovered in a bootable state but fail right after

Alibi Demo Comp 5 >found it back, working on recovery!
Alibi Hardcore Disk
Amiga 500 - The Very First - English Version PN: 380921-02 14.07.87 >provided by Prowler!
BSA Demo Disk 11
BSA Demo Disk 13
BSA Demo Disk 15 >found it back, recovered 100%!
BSA Demo Disk 18
BSA Demo Disk 2
BSA Demo Disk 9 >found it back, recovered 100%!
BSA Picture Disk 3
BSA Picture Disk 4 >recovered after many retries >thanks to Kryoflux
Demo Disk #8 (by Black Label)
Fairlight Horror Show
Honey Slide #4
Jean Michel Jarre Slide
JHK DigiMovie
MFC Demo Disk #24
Mr Rubik Demos #3 >found it back, working on recovery!
Music Collection Nr. 1 (1989-03-02)(C.C.S.) >recovered from original floppy by Prowler!
Shadow'n Light Concert Preview >found it back, recovered 100%!
Space Photos Set I
The Band Jukebox 1
Space Photos >found it back, working on recovery!

[StingRay]

Interesting demos. Can you upload the CCS music collection? Might be that it just needs Kick 1.2 as most older CCS stuff.

[dirkies]

the CCS floppy is knackered, it does load the menu but other than that tracks 71,73>77 and 79 are bad.

[dirkies]

it upped it in the zone, some music will give a checksum error

[StingRay]

Ah, too bad. But thanks for uploading!

[s2325]

If I remember right in WinUAE it's possible to skip some errors with floppy drive set to turbo. I don't know how it's done but I remember some demo packs were watchable after that.

[prowler]

Hi dirkies,

For comparison with the dump I am able to make, I have downloaded your .ADF in The Zone of the CCS Music Collection 1 disk you have sent me, thanks.

Could you upload your .ADF of the Black Label Demo Disk 8 you have sent me, too, please?

[dirkies]

same msg as in other thread:
the ADFs were actually taken from the 3.5" floppies which were included in the package, so you can kryoflux those and compare. You also now have the list of the tracks that were copied OK off the 5.25" disk to the 3.5" disk, so assuming the 3.5" floppies are still ok, you should just focus with kryoflux on the few tracks that I could not read out ok on the 5.25" floppy about 10 years ago on real amiga hardware.
The CCS disk in the zone was kryofluxed from the 3.5" floppy but I believe there were more errors on it that originally on the 5.25" disk! I guess time has taken some bit-rot toll on the 3.5" floppy aswell

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

the ADFs were actually taken from the 3.5" floppies which were included in the package, so you can kryoflux those and compare.

If you still have the ADF you took from the Black Label Demo Disk 8, could you upload it for me anyway, please?

The image I have dumped from the 3½-inch version of the CCS Music collection disk is different to yours down at the single bit level in several places and in large chunks of data in others. I have attached a copy of it below so you and everyone else can see what I mean.

Originally Posted by dirkies

The CCS disk in the zone was kryofluxed from the 3.5" floppy but I believe there were more errors on it than originally on the 5.25" disk! I guess time has taken some bit-rot toll on the 3.5" floppy aswell

Actually, I have to tell you that I am pleasantly surprised by how well these disks have survived the last ten years. I believe that my dump of the CCS Music collection disk will, in fact, be better than yours when I check it with DiskMonTools in WinUAE.

Even if my dump turns out to be worse than yours, The differences between your dump and mine may pinpoint flaky data on the original disks, which will simplify considerably the process of repairing bad sectors by editing the data in the disk image to match the checksums.

So please give me all the information you can concerning the other disks. Thankyou.

[dirkies]

see my mail in the other thread, the CCS 3.5" floppy should only be used if you have trouble recovering tracks from the 5.25" floppy. 10 years ago I could copy over from the 5.25" most tracks to this 3.5" floppy, except those noted on the 5.25 sleeve.
But since then it seems the 3.5" floppy also start to die, so I think it is best to start with the 5.25 version and see how much good tracks you can dump of it. Esp the last ones are hard to readout ok!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

the CCS 3.5" floppy should only be used if you have trouble recovering tracks from the 5.25" floppy. 10 years ago I could copy over from the 5.25" most tracks to this 3.5" floppy, except those noted on the 5.25 sleeve.

I disagree. Recovering old floppy disks very often involves maximum likelihood guesswork and, when it comes down to that, you need all the information you can get.

Those 3½-inch floppies are almost complete copies of the 5¼-inch disks you now wish to recover, and the copies were made 10 years ago when the original disks might well have been in much better shape than they are today.

In my experience, 5¼-inch floppies are generally better able to retain their data over time than 3½-inch disks if stored carefully. Maybe this is because the larger disks store the data less densely. However, 3½-inch floppy disks are much better protected by their enclosures than are 5¼-inch disks in their flimsy sleeves, so there are situations where the 3½-inch disks will be found to have performed the better. Consequently, nothing can be taken for granted.

Originally Posted by dirkies

But since then it seems the 3.5" floppy also start to die, so I think it is best to start with the 5.25 version and see how much good tracks you can dump of it. Esp the last ones are hard to readout ok!

The evidence that these 3½-inch disks have 'started to die' must have been 'lost in transit'. Indeed, I have already said that I am very pleased with the way these disks have survived. I chose to start with them simply because the equipment I am using (Catweasel MK4) was already set up for 3½-inch media in connection with other projects I am currently working on.

If it turns out that the 5¼-inch disks perform as expected, then the data I have already recovered from the 3½-inch set will improve the level of confidence in the final disk images. If you still had the all ADF images you took from these disks 10 years ago, then they might have improved it still further.

As I had thought, my CCS Music collection Nr 1 [WIP1] disk image fixes many of the bad sectors in the image you took 10 years ago.

Having spent most of today working in the gardens, I am hoping to make a start on the 5¼-inch floppies tomorrow.

[dirkies]

good to know, just remember the tracknumbers written down on the sleeve of the 5.25" are broken on the 3.5" aswell, so although on the 3.5" these tracks may read "fine", their actual contents is rubbish as it is a partial copy of the 5.25" broken tracks, 10 years ago I used RattleCopy4 for the transfer. Remember, the 5.25" contains the "master image", the 3.5" discs are just partial copy attempts from the master images.
Keep us posted on your progress!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

good to know, just remember the tracknumbers written down on the sleeve of the 5.25" are broken on the 3.5" aswell, so although on the 3.5" these tracks may read "fine", their actual contents is rubbish as it is a partial copy of the 5.25" broken tracks, 10 years ago I used RattleCopy4 for the transfer. Remember, the 5.25" contains the "master image", the 3.5" discs are just partial copy attempts from the master images.

Yes, I'm aware that some of the content of the 3½-inch disks in the broken tracks is rubbish, but valid checksums here indicate that a significant number of blocks have been copied intact.

BTW, what are the "POW-STYX.dms", "BS1 crack", "broken ADF on the scoopex ISO just missing the bootblock" and "BS1 bootblock" mentioned in the other thread? Could you at least share those with me?

[dirkies]

all 160 tracks, other than the ones mentioned on the sleeve of the 5.25" disk, were copied OK to their respective 3.5" disk about 10 years ago. The big majority was copied fine, only a few tracks I could never read out ok from the 5.25" on amiga hardware 10 years ago, and since the BS1 crack of powerstyx uses some NDOS MFM format, it was even impossible to figure out if the tracks could be copied ok or not, so that is the reason there is no 3.5" floppy with Powerstyx.

I will dig up the broken powerstyx dms file from those ISOs and put it in the zone. the BS1 bootblock is on the 5.25" floppy I sent you

[prowler]

Originally Posted by dirkies

all 160 tracks, other than the ones mentioned on the sleeve of the 5.25" disk, were copied OK to their respective 3.5" disk about 10 years ago. The big majority was copied fine, only a few tracks I could never read out ok from the 5.25" on amiga hardware 10 years ago, and since the BS1 crack of powerstyx uses some NDOS MFM format, it was even impossible to figure out if the tracks could be copied ok or not, so that is the reason there is no 3.5" floppy with Powerstyx.

Yes, and that's the reason why it will require PowerCopy or KryoFlux raw dumps to compile a valid image of it.

Originally Posted by dirkies

I will dig up the broken powerstyx dms file from those ISOs and put it in the zone. the BS1 bootblock is on the 5.25" floppy I sent you

Thanks! That will at least give me something to refer to when dumping the Powerstyx disk, and I don't think I'm going to need special tools to grab the bootblock(s) from it.

[dirkies]

if kryoflux can read MFM tracks (I believe sync 4489) it should be fine to read tracks. After all you can read individual tracks one by one and once you have all individual OK read tracks, you can "stitch" them back together by writing them to the same floppy one by one.

[prowler]

That's the way I would prefer to do it.

[dirkies]

I am really curious how the recovery process goes, how many tracks can be read ok off the 5.25" floppies without too much hassle, and which tracks will need some extra care before they can be recovered.

[prowler]

When I am conducting a salvage operation - whether from a broken archive or disk - I keep a record of every detail of the process for myself and usually post an edited version in the appropriate thread if there is sufficient interest.

If you don't think there is sufficient detail in what I am posting here when I start getting some results, then just let me know. I keep a record of everything.

I have not yet finished documenting all the discrepancies between my dump of the CCS Music Collection Nr 1 disk and yours, but I will post the details here when I have.

As far as the dumping of the 3½-inch disks went yesterday, the CCS Music collection Nr 1 disk and Black Label Demo Disk 8 copied out with no bad sectors.

BS1&TKT Sounddisk 1 tracks 77,0, 78,1, 79,0 and 79,1 (offsets $D3C00-$D51FF and $D7E00-$DBFFF, or Disk Blocks 1694-1704 and 1727-1759 in the disk image) are unreadable and zeroed out.

War Tools v3 tracks 76,1, 77,1, 78,1 and 79,1 (offsets $D2600-$D3BFF, $D5200-$D67FF, $D7E00-$D93FF and $DAA00-$DBFFF, or Disk Blocks 1683-1693, 1705-1715, 1727-1737 and 1749-1759 in the disk image) are unreadable and zeroed out.

There is no point in uploading these images until they are as good as I can get them. The reasons I uploaded my first attempt at the CCS Music collection disk yesterday were because it was significantly better than what you had previously uploaded, and StingRay had indicated his interest in this disk too.

[prowler]

Earlier today I successfully dumped the 5¼-inch CCS Music collection Nr 1, War Tools v3 and BS1&TKT Sounddisk 1 disks to ADFs using a Mitsubishi MF504C-310MG high density drive attached to my Catweasel MK4.

It only remains to assemble the various dumps into valid disk images and I can upload them.

The Black Label Demo Disk 8 dump still has thirteen bad sectors, but I am expecting to be able to fix them by using other drive units.

Also, I have dumped Track 0,0 of the Powerstyx+ 100% disk. The other tracks were unreadable using Catweasel, but that's given me the boot sectors to try with the Powerstyx DMS file when I have it.