Is there batch ADF checker?

[Oxygene]

Ie.,I got few thousand ADF files on hard drive copied from couple CD's claimed by Rot(tm),so instead of checking them one by one,is there any tool that does batch checking (ADF directory/file structure etc).I realize that would probably not work with NDOS ADFs,but still...

[s2325]

Some ADF files still fully works even with [b] in filename (Techtech demo by Sodan for example).

[Oxygene]

Actually,these ADFs are not TOSEC files,they were copied from ancient compilation CD's (I found them at friend's house couple of days ago).The only way to copy them was to create CD image on hard drive with Nero using "ignore read errors" option,and then mount image and copy from there.Hence,all files were copied,but some are certainly corrupted.Also,the files are named 0001.adf...0002.adf...1234.adf etc so I have no idea what apps/games they are.Also,three CDs contain DMS files,i guess they would be easier to check (IIRC,DMS had some sort of CRC?).

I did try copying CDs using Badcopy Pro,but it got stuck at first couple of files for over 30 hours :-(

Anyway,any help is appreciated since these are 10 CD's loaded with old Amiga software,IMHO it would be a real shame to waste them,and I really don't have the time to check files one by one.

I guess I might check them with latest TOSEC dats,then manually sort through unrecognized files?

[Adderly]

The best would be to try different CD Readers on the CD's because some drives have better error correction and possible would read more files. Burners often have better quality than normal read-only CD/DVD drives.

The DMS files have indeed a CRC16 for the headers/tracks so an corruption would be detected with a high probability. Batch convert to adf is possible with XDMS and all errors would be shown.

I suggest to scan the adf's with the latest Tosec dat and then check the remaining files for errors with an adf tool (see FAQ for Tools). For example ADFREN by Feltzkrone shows defect files on a dos disk on the fly but you must load the adf manually. I do not know any batch tool for this work.

[Qube]

Yeh, I have a fair few old CDs with slight errors, of course in Windows when trying to copy an entire folder, when it gets to an unreadable file it just stops the copy with an error and gives up.. however, if you do a directory list, pipe into a text file, then edit this to create a batch to copy each file individually, you'll find your PC will attempt to copy a bad file many times, then give up, but will move onto the next file.. sometimes, if you try the bad files again later, they will then copy! bizarre! I think the cd drive and the disc type and perhaps even the speed of the disc at the time all have a lot to do with reading bad files back. Then again, files contained in sectors badly busted, are alas gone..

Also, some CDs written on the Amiga have filenames illegal under Windoze, so in those cases I mount the CD via WinUAE as an Amiga volume and copy the files off to Ram Disk, then they can be renamed appropiately, and copied to a mounted Hard Disk for example.

Q;

[rgen]

The problem is, that there is not the perfect error correction cd drive but each has its advantages and disadvantages. To solve this a german computer magazine wrote a program (Windows only) that create an iso file and a flag file where it marks which block it read successfully and which not. After you finished reading on one drive you insert the disc in another drive and then it only tries to read the blocks it couldn't read on the other one. This already rescued me two discs which no drive could completely read alone. (After using my two pc drives, then connecting my Amiga drive and for the last 14 KB I droved to my brother )

You can find it there: ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2cdimage.zip

It's limited to 2048 bytes blocks only (this excludes audio tracks, (S)VCD discs and exotic things like CD+G etc. as well as copy protected discs) and it's german only but simple to use:

h2cdimage a:b:c filename -i

The -i option is only used to create the files and a,b and c are numbers:
a is the adapter, normally 0 for primary channel and 1 for secondary channel but this can change if you have additional controllers.
b is the scsi id or for ide drives 0 for master and 1 for slave
c is the lun which is used by cd changers, for normal drives this is always 0
Unfortunately it prints no list but you can us a nonexistant filename as it shows the drive name before it starts and then simply stops.

So you start the first time with -i, it then creates filename.iso, the image file (which takes some time) and filename.h2i, the flag file. The next times you start without the -i to read further blocks.

>h2cdimage.exe 1:1:0 bla -i
H2cdimage -- by Harald Bögeholz / c't Magazin für Computertechnik
Version 1.8, Copyright (C) 2005 Heise Zeitschriften Verlag GmbH & Co. KG
ASPI geladen. Anzahl der Adapter: 3
Gerät: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1712J004  (05 80 00 32 5B 00 00 00)
Gesamt: 349704 Sektoren, Sektorgröße: 2048
Lege Image-Datei 'bla.iso' an.
Lege Flag-Datei 'bla.h2i' an.
88.6 % gelesen, 40001 fehlen, 88.9 % probiert. Lese #315911

The first two lines are a copyright, the third tells that it loaded the ASPI driver and found three adapters. The fourth line prints the drivename so you can recognize if you selected the right drive. The fifth tells the number of sectors and their size. The sixth and seventh that it creates the two files and the last line is the interesting one: the first number tells how many sectors were read successfully, the second how many are missing, the third one how many sectors it tried to read (in this example this one is bigger as the first number so it couldn't read all sectors) and the fourth one is the sector it currently tries to read. And finally: you can interrupt at any time with Ctrl-C.

[killergorilla]

Cheers for the info on that program

[Oxygene]

Very nice,thank you.I'm trying it right now.

[rgen]

@Oxygene

Hope you had some success ?

[Oxygene]

@rgen

Well,mostly yes,and I thank you very much.Some CD's still have missing sectors,though,so I'm gonna set me up an old pentium box with 7 cd-roms - yes,i keep lot of stuff in my garage .I guess an trusty old SCSI Plextor 12x should do the trick with remaining missing sectors.Since I'm doing that,I might as well put together an ultimate 97ish PC gamebox

Anyhow,thanx for the input,it's much appreciated.