Copy-Protected Disk (Once it dies, software gone)

[redpixel]

Here you go @kodak80

C-Lab Aura (HFE Rev 3).zip

This is from the IPF file made using 5REVS

See if this works on Gotek.

That .hfe seems to work fine in my GoTek, running Flashfloppy 3.42. Thanks a lot! Will be really fun to try it out

And also thanks for providing a proper crack, Atari74user Seems the 35-year-old protection was still a bit hard to break. Judging by MCA.TXT they also had problems the first time around

[Cosmic Puppet]

Here you go @kodak80

C-Lab Aura (HFE Rev 3).zip

This is from the IPF file made using 5REVS

See if this works on Gotek.

That .hfe seems to work fine in my GoTek, running Flashfloppy 3.42. Thanks a lot! Will be really fun to try it out

And also thanks for providing a proper crack, Atari74user Seems the 35-year-old protection was still a bit hard to break. Judging by MCA.TXT they also had problems the first time around

Cool

[Cosmic Puppet]

I just tried putting this on my SD Card in my UltraSatan thinking it may be a good hard disk solution but alas it needs to be on a floppy disk to not get the error. Incidentally the folder is over 720kb so it wasn't an option to try a floppy disk.

Not sure what you have done, but I use the crack off of my UltraSatan with no issues, under TOS 2.06.

Nice to have a legit working copy too, very cool!

I'll test it on my TOS 1.04 SD Card as I tried it running EmuTOS and let you know.

[Cosmic Puppet]

I dunno what I was on that day @Atari74user Your cracked version works on my EmuTOS 1.0.1.PRG SD Card and my stock ROM TOS 1.04 SD Card using UltraSatan.

A caveat is that I had to go to MENU/CHORDS and turn off Octave Add and then click Save Settings in the file menu, in order for it to sound the same as my stock disk (otherwise I was getting low notes out of useful range.)

*Realisation* I have my Master Key Shift set down an octave on my keyboard. If I set it at zero all the notes sound fine. Duh

[Atari74user]

That's cool, no problem regarding the crack @redpixel and @Cosmic Puppet, despite preferring using original software, it is useful to run some cracks, especially for software not designed to be run from a traditional HD. As you say @redpixel according to the .txt, MCA appears to initially had issues.

Either way, original software is now preserved!

[Cosmic Puppet]

That's cool, no problem regarding the crack @redpixel and @Cosmic Puppet, despite preferring using original software, it is useful to run some cracks, especially for software not designed to be run from a traditional HD. As you say @redpixel according to the .txt, MCA appears to initially had issues.

Either way, original software is now preserved!

The crack allows my to have it shortcutted on my Atari desktop for convenience, so it's a win all 'round.

[ijor]

Now I have managed to do a working backup of Cosmic Puppets original disk, I achieved this by creating a homemade IPF of the disk, the same way i did the UBIsoft games.

I don't have a high res monitor so I can't test the disk on real hardware, but writing the disk and then reading back to SCP format works fine and I can see from re-checking in Aufit or HXC that it all appears good.

This is a good workaround, well done. But note that this is not an ideal solution, it is just a workaround. This method might not work in all cases. What happens here is that when writing back such a home made IPF image, the GW software places the write splice "blindly" after the sector that crosses the index hole. If it happens that the protection has anything on the gap at that location, it would break. And what is worse, this is something that is not easy to see with Aufit or the HxC tools. The solution, once more again, is to specify a custom write splice location that is determined after a high level analysis.

[ijor]

I converted the working SCP to HFEv3 format to test on a Gotek drive. The HFEv3 works on my two Gotek drives and loads fine. The caveat is that the FlashFloppy firmware needs to be v3.39 as newer firmware seem to not work with this HFEv3 file. Looks like there is a regression to the changes made in v3.39. Gotek drives with the latest HxC firmware work and if you use FlashFloppy v3.39 firmware this disk will work.

Be careful with these tests. When running from a raw image, either under emulation or using something like a Gotek, the problem to locate a suitable write splice point doesn't exist. But the problem with data under the index is still here. If the firmware (or emulator) is not careful enough, it might not always work. The exact behavior might depend on how many revolutions the image has, and it is even possible that it will work intermittently.

Btw, not directly related to the write splice issue, but the Pasti image at Atarimiania has a defect and it also works intermittently. I didn't realize this initially, and this is why I thought that the problem was that the image wasn't write protected.

[Dave Harrison]

Now I have managed to do a working backup of Cosmic Puppets original disk, I achieved this by creating a homemade IPF of the disk, the same way i did the UBIsoft games.

I don't have a high res monitor so I can't test the disk on real hardware, but writing the disk and then reading back to SCP format works fine and I can see from re-checking in Aufit or HXC that it all appears good.

This is a good workaround, well done. But note that this is not an ideal solution, it is just a workaround. This method might not work in all cases. What happens here is that when writing back such a home made IPF image, the GW software places the write splice "blindly" after the sector that crosses the index hole. If it happens that the protection has anything on the gap at that location, it would break. And what is worse, this is something that is not easy to see with Aufit or the HxC tools. The solution, once more again, is to specify a custom write splice location that is determined after a high level analysis.

Yes absolutely, this was just a workaround and a solution for the original poster to get a working backup. This will absolutely not end up being uploaded to any of our repositories, it's was a workaround and nothing else.

I did request a new dump from Cosmic Puppet with 5 Revs, which he kindly sent me, so I will pass that on to Dflrsilver and see if he can make a true IPF from it. But my guess is that he won't be able to, as the SPS tools won't recognise this protection scheme.
Hopefully Keir may look into implementing your solution into the GW tools, which is definitely the best solution.