Amiga 500 Office not in TOSEC

[HymnsomniaK]

While digging around my old miggy stuff I found this app that is not in tosec as far as I could tell. By reading the label only one disk is in portuguese but can't say if the whole app is localized or if its just the label.

- Amiga 500 Office by Gold Disk (1991)
4 Disks containing: - Page
- Page (Fontes & Utilitarios) - portuguese label
- Calc , Graph , File
- Write , Spell

I will dump and test them asap cuz they're OLD.

[HymnsomniaK]

Weird things happening here. Disk 1 has one error on track 0 and disk 2 has one error on track 5 but seem to work fine , however disks 3 and 4 when check or copied have no errors but when trying to read the files within have checksum errors?

Checked the Page software itself and it is portuguese localized. Can't check the others cuz the disks they're on are messed up. So much for preserving my disks...

[prowler]

Hi HymnsomniaK,

Could you upload the disk images to The Zone? It sounds to me like they could be fixed.

[TCD]

Please contact prowler before giving up He is our resident disk saviour

Edit: Should have known better

[prowler]

Hey, thanks for the kind words, TCD.

[TCD]

No, thank you for your constant efforts to preserve hard to transfer old disks

[HymnsomniaK]

In The Zone.
Included in the file are: dms dumps , diskripper dumps , rawread dumps with -r flag.

Good Luck

[prowler]

Thanks. I'll have a look at them tomorrow.

Edit: Good, comprehensive set of dumps you've made there. That will help. Well done!

[prowler]

As yet, I have only looked at the office.adf disk image, derived from the office.dms image by unpacking it.

Six data blocks have been damaged by the SADDAM virus, characterized by the string 'IRAK' in the first four bytes.

A seventh data block is also damaged, but that just looks like a flaky sector.

Edit: The write.adf disk image has seven data blocks damaged by the SADDAM virus, but page.adf and pageutil.adf are unaffected.

[HymnsomniaK]

I would've never suspected that a virus was responsible since those disks where never used by me (came with an Amiga500 I bought from a friend 15 years ago). Also the office and write disks have most likely been altered cuz while browsing user created files are present , hence the virus.

Using original software disks to store work files?

The page disk error is a bit odd , it has an error at the start but it boots just fine. Attempts to image this disk in various ways causes some resulting dumps to not boot at all , maybe it's some sort of protection?

Thank you very much for your time and patience

[prowler]

Originally Posted by HymnsomniaK

Thank you very much for your time and patience

I'm not finished with them yet...

It will not be possible for me to repair all the virus damage without some replacement disk blocks, files or disk images.

However, it may be possible to correct the corruption which is affecting the Calc program in the Office disk image, and I would like to ask you if you could possibly produce another set of disk images using a different disk drive with that in mind.

The Office disk image also has filesystem errors which are affecting the Calc program, but I should be able to correct those with the images I already have. I'm in the process of mapping all the sectors on that disk.

Even though the virus damage is likely to be irreversible, l would still like to repair what I can on these disk images and post my progress here. In doing so, it's just possible that this thread may flush out another copy of these disks belonging to someone else who has a set (whether the Portuguese language version or some other).

It's merely by chance that I selected this disk to start with. Let's hope that the others are not as badly damaged.

[HymnsomniaK]

Dumps from external drive now in the Zone.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by HymnsomniaK

Dumps from external drive now in the Zone.

Thankyou very much, HymnsomniaK!

(BTW, I am not sure that the disks actually contain the SADDAM virus; they may just have some virus-damaged data blocks.)

In the meantime, I have discovered that the Office disk images dumped by DMS 1.11 and DiskRipper 1.52 are different in the range of offsets $0E800-$107FF (Disk Blocks 116-131 ($74-$83) or CHS 05,0,06 to 05,1,10), with the DiskRipper data being the better. (The problem with the DMS image was likely triggered by a flaky bit in bad Disk Block 116.)

It is almost certain that importing Disk Blocks 117-131 ($75-$83) from the DiskRipper image is the key to fixing the filesystem errors on the Office disk. Disk Block 116 will remain damaged, of course, but this block is marked -=[BAD SECTOR]=- throughout in the DiskRipper image.

[HymnsomniaK]

Originally Posted by prowler

(BTW, I am not sure that the disks actually contain the SADDAM virus; they may just have some virus-damaged data blocks.)

Better safe than sorry I always say.

Originally Posted by prowler

It is almost certain that importing Disk Blocks 117-131 ($75-$83) from the DiskRipper image is the key to fixing the filesystem errors on the Office disk. Disk Block 116 will remain damaged, of course, but this block is marked -=[BAD SECTOR]=- throughout in the DiskRipper image.

That's great news! Here's hoping that this disk is the most troublesome.

[prowler]

Hi HymnsomniaK,

Your external drive dumps were worth uploading. The external drive has sufficiently different characteristics to the internal drive (head alignment, sensitivity, etc.) for a few troublesome sectors to have been captured differently.

I have not checked them thoroughly yet, but it's looking like those images are the slightly better set.

[HymnsomniaK]

Originally Posted by prowler

Hi HymnsomniaK,

I have not checked them thoroughly yet, but it's looking like those images are the slightly better set.

Really? I would've never guessed that since a dump of Page disk (with the error at the start) does not boot if it was made from the external drive...

[prowler]

Originally Posted by HymnsomniaK

Really? I would've never guessed that since a dump of Page disk (with the error at the start) does not boot if it was made from the external drive...

Yes, really. The Page disk alone doesn't represent the overall situation.

In any case, the fact that there are differences between the sets of images is the important point. These give me an indication of where the problems are. That the second set is slightly better is a bonus.

I will soon have an ADF image of the Office disk (for the moment, I am still working on this disk exclusively) with no filesystem errors and only seven damaged first data blocks (six overwritten by the SADDAM virus and one corrupted) with the headers and checksums fixed. The files affected are: LUIS 2, Graph.info, Calc, Graph, Calc.info, Exemplos.info and File.info.

Would you like me to upload it then?

It may eventually be possible to repair the .info files at least, even if nobody else has an A500 Office disk set, depending on what files I find on the other disks in the set.

[HymnsomniaK]

I think it would be best to have all four disks in the best possible shape you can get them into before uploading. The main goal is to get the best possible set so they can be contributed to TOSEC. This app is turning out to be quite rare which is bad , very bad.

This is all the info I could find about the company http://www.pcmuseum.ca/companyprofile.asp?id=189 .

[prowler]

Hi HynsomniaK,

I have fixed the filesystem errors which were causing the Calc program to be unreadable, but the 176th data block is still corrupted. The Office.DMS image you produced using the external drive contains different (and possibly better) data for that block, but it still might not be possible to fix it. The DiskRipper images will not help; they both have this data block marked -=[BAD SECTOR]=- throughout.

I reconstructed the headers and fixed the checksums in the virus-damaged data blocks that were causing the other six files to be unreadable, but in doing so I have found another corrupted data block in the Graph program. This is Disk Block 918 ($396) at offset $72C00-$72DFF. The DiskRipper images will not help; they both contain the same corrupted data for this disk block, but I still have the RawRead images for this disk to check.

Now for some better news: The SADDAM virus has not obliterated any data blocks on these disks, only encrypted them; and I have just discovered how to decrypt them!

[HymnsomniaK]

Originally Posted by prowler

The SADDAM virus has not obliterated any data blocks on these disks, only encrypted them; and I have just discovered how to decrypt them!

Great news! Disk saviour indeed!

If you ever need more dumps with a specific dumping software let me know.