List of difficult to copy disks

[DrCoolZic]

Your original post says "I received dragonflight today" so I thought you had it?

Here is the problem
When you start the program you are asked to create a backup copy of disk B. So I follow the instruction
- format backup disk B and note the number
- insert original disk b
- write backup disk b
- now I am asked to place original disk b. The program read the track (to compare????) and it stops after reading 22 to 29 tracks with disk corrupted.

I have tried to rewrite disk B several times
I have tried on 3 different Atari
But it never works ????

HELP

[alexh]

I have originals of the German, French and English versions of Dragonflight for Atari but no SCP. If anyone wants to loan me one for a few days, I'm in Oxfordshire England, just send me a PM.

[DrCoolZic]

I have originals of the German, French and English versions of Dragonflight for Atari but no SCP. If anyone wants to loan me one for a few days, I'm in Oxfordshire England, just send me a PM.

Would be great
Did you see my procedure to play the game on Steem & Hatari? viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26433&start=25#p265915

For those following the Jupiter Masterdrive saga I found how to generate 14 00 1C 92 10 90 C2 0B CD B4 F7 00 DE AD C0 DE on a real Atari viewtopic.php?f=104&t=27448&p=265938#p265938

[JimDrew]

People send me original disks all of the time, so that is likely why I posted that. I will double-check my collection of original disks though... I have thousands of originals, but my list doesn't indicate I have the originals for Dragonflight.

[JimDrew]

OK, I made disks from the SCP image files of Dragonflight that are on the FTP site. These were made by me originally.

I booted disk A and went to the backup menu. I formatted a new disk and it told me to label that as B:xxxxx. I then selected the COPY disk option and followed the instructions. Two full passes are made (I guess for each side?). When complete, it told me to use the backup disks. I saw no errors, or any issues. It worked just fine.

I think the 2nd pass is the 2nd side, not a comparison. I think there is a comparison done during the write. Have you tried using different disks when writing the SCP image file? Did you try running the Media Integrity Test on the disk before writing to it?

I made two sets of disks from the SCP images on two different drives (Sony and Samsung), and I can't get it to fail making a copy with Dragonflight's disk copy option. My guess would be you are using a bad disk or drive for writing with SCP.

[DrCoolZic]

as explained here viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26433&p=265875#p265915
I have been able to run the game from the backup disk so should not be too bad.
I have tried to write disk B several times but on the same diskette may I should try another one?

Would it be possible for you to create ans scp file of the backup disk and post?
thanks

[JimDrew]

I would say you likely just have a bad disk. I have tried this a few more times today, and even copies of copies of copies are able to load properly and create backup copy disks without any issues. Try running SCP's Media Integrity Test on that disk. A LOT of people are doing this now and I have had many requests to make a checkbox for an option to test a track before it is written to make sure the media is perfect... I will probably do that.

I made a .scp image (5 revs) of the Backup B disk. I put it in the incoming AtariST directory of the FTP site (backupB.7z).

[DrCoolZic]

Thanks for backup of B works fine
I found that is is almost same as mine with the exception of the "serial" number see viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26433&p=266027#p266027

I am curious after writing backup disk b where you asked to backup disc C?
see the reference post for more info

[Stefan jL]

I received an original sealed "BoBo" today along with an opened "Treasure Trap". Oddly, both sets of disks for these games did not work because the center hub spun freely from the magnetic media! As a test, I put a drop of CA (superglue) where the center hub meets the plastic and I was able to load Bobo and copy it, however, the index mark is way off from where it should be. I have never seen this issue before, but gluing the disk seems to work.

There is thread here, where someone wrote about same problem with floppy. Wrong index position may be problem by protections using track read. But I guess that shifting of track can be done in image.

Same thing happened with my Xiphos... the centre hub was loose so i glued it and thought it was an easy fix... but it seems the copy protection did not like it
Both Xiphos and Treasure Trap is by Electronic Zoo... a coincidence?
"Disk manufactured in U.K."... ok thats why

Here is my glued disk SCP copy:
http://arcade.ym2149.com/files/scpro/not_working/xiphos_d1_glued.7z

[JimDrew]

Yeah, the index reference is now no longer in the correct place.

[Brume]

Found an interesting case: Total Recall

The game needs two disks which seem to be double-side formatted. But...

- SuperCard Pro archives only one side on each disk. See the pictures below. So the game doesn't boot at all.

- Also if you download STX disks on Atarimania (which were made with original Pasti program, I think) you can see the disks don't work. Have tried the games with Steem and Hatari. Same case: only first sides of each disk were imaged.

- At last, I imaged both disks with Kryoflux: this time, they do work with Steem. No problem at all, the game is playable. Since the second disk has a bad track (track 29.1), I'd prefer not spread it publicly until I manage to recover it. I tried to clean it several time, but the bad track is still there. Will try again.

Also, maybe someone with this game could try to dump it, too? I'm very curious if you guys obtain the same results.

Thanks for reading

Total Recall disk A.scp.disk_view.png

Total Recall disk B.scp.disk_view.png

Total Recall disk A.raw.disk_view.png

Total Recall disk B.raw.disk_view.png

[kodak80]

If these Total Recall disks are double-sided, just wondering what trickery was done to get the budget version of this game on a single double-sided disk?? The budget STX on Atarimania works fine in Steem and in just one disk.

[simonsunnyboy]

Hmm, I have a PASTI copy of Total Recall here and it works in Hatari with PASTI support. (Atleast for Level 1, I hardly get farther than that)
Maybe tehre are different disks around? Mine is a two disk set.

[Brume]

If these Total Recall disks are double-sided, just wondering what trickery was done to get the budget version of this game on a single double-sided disk?? The budget STX on Atarimania works fine in Steem and in just one disk.

Maybe the Hit Squad version was simply redone? Some animations replaced or some redundant data removed?

Hmm, I have a PASTI copy of Total Recall here and it works in Hatari with PASTI support. (Atleast for Level 1, I hardly get farther than that)
Maybe tehre are different disks around? Mine is a two disk set.

Where did you get it? It's not the archives from atarimania, right?

[simonsunnyboy]

Either it was an attachment here on AF, over at the D-Bug forum or Atari Mania. I normally do not keep track where I download stuffs

AF seems slow and refuses my attachment. Drop me a classic email and i will send you the .stx files.

[AtariZoll]

I looked STX images at AM - Ocean edition's disk 1 image is bad, while disk 2 img. seems OK. They are 2 sided - so not correct what Brume says.
But there is lot of unused space on them - that and data compression is the answer how it fits on single floppy (HitSquad ed.) - which STX is OK.
So, it seems that we can have good STX images of Ocean edition even if Brume will be not able to make good image of disk 2

[kodak80]

STX files aside, I am wondering why Brume's SCP imaging software did not pick up the data from the 2nd side of the disks but the Kryoflux software did? Was the same floppy drive used with both flux boards?

[Brume]

I looked STX images at AM - Ocean edition's disk 1 image is bad, while disk 2 img. seems OK. They are 2 sided - so not correct what Brume says.

You're right, I'm just checking with HxCFloppyEmulator, and there's data on the second side of each disks. I just trusted Atarimania infos, which says "Number of Disks: 2 / Single Sided"
So the 1st .STX fil on atarimania was badly imaged... Have you tried these disks with Hatari, too? It tries to boot, but displays red rasters.
I have exactly the same issues with my .SCP files.

But there is lot of unused space on them - that and data compression is the answer how it fits on single floppy (HitSquad ed.) - which STX is OK.
So, it seems that we can have good STX images of Ocean edition even if Brume will be not able to make good image of disk 2

Good news
Also I'd like very much to dump valid .SCP files,too. And I'd rather to dump them from the original disks instead of converting them from RAW files. That's why I posted here instead of another part of the forum

[DrCoolZic]

Can we access Kryoflux image somewhere?
Thanks

[simonsunnyboy]

My disks are likely to be from Atarimania. I remember trying if they were really singlesided but they were not. And i missed a bugtracker facility at Atarimania in the process

[DrCoolZic]

Found an interesting case: Total Recall

The game needs two disks which seem to be double-side formatted. But...

- SuperCard Pro archives only one side on each disk.

- At last, I imaged both disks with Kryoflux: this time, they do work with Steem. No problem at all, the game is playable. Since the second disk has a bad track (track 29.1), I'd prefer not spread it publicly until I manage to recover it. I tried to clean it several time, but the bad track is still there. Will try again.

Would be interesting to understand why SuperCard Pro create image of only one side???

[JimDrew]

Found an interesting case: Total Recall

The game needs two disks which seem to be double-side formatted. But...

- SuperCard Pro archives only one side on each disk. See the pictures below. So the game doesn't boot at all.

Looks like you have a problem with the disk drive or something. SuperCard Pro always images both sides - there is no way to image just a single side (yet). There appears to be some type of data on the back side... you can see it has random pixels.

Looking at the disk view of the .scp image, I would say there is at very least a problem with the drive's speed - possibly a power issue? I am guessing that the same power setup is not being used between SCP and KF. Did you try imaging any other disks after the Total Recall disks? I am guessing that they will look the same way since there is no way to tell SCP to image just a single side.

[kodak80]

These Total Recall STX files from TOSEC-v2011-03-20_CM work fine in Steem & Hatari:

Total Recall (1990)(Ocean)(Disk 1 of 2).zip

Total Recall (1990)(Ocean)(Disk 2 of 2).zip

I look forward to Brume cleaning his disk & drive to get a clean SCP dump.

[greatguy]

I have done SCP images of Total Recall from my original disks. Feel free to grab them from my dropbox.

Total Recall