a8rawconv, a new raw disk conversion utility

[Zarxx]

Thanks. All OK apart from this one for some reason. Has a lot of weak sectors compared to the others.

 

Shanghai (1987)(Activision)(GB) - T33 - Weak s1-11

 

Shanghai.zip - ATX & SCP

[Savetz]

I've read read a bunch of disks with KyroFlux, some of which are important and unpreserved, and though they seem to read fine with etc, a8rawconv give me a ton of errors on most of the files.

 

A lot of CRC failures followed by "Missing sectors not supported by ATR format."

 

Using v.9 on Mac. Is there anything I can do to improve things?

 

thanks

-Kevin

[ijor]

(bolding is mine):

 

I've read read a bunch of disks with KyroFlux, some of which are important and unpreserved, and though they seem to read fine with etc, a8rawconv give me a ton of errors on most of the files.

A lot of CRC failures followed by "Missing sectors not supported by ATR format."

 

Kevin, are those original copy protected disks? If so, you can't convert them to ATR, you must convert them to ATX. Anyway, if they are rare, please provide the raw Kryoflux dumps somehow for preservation.

 

 

[+Allan]

Has anyone got the Mac OS X version of this to work? I'm struggling to get a8rawconv to work.

 

I am using Terminal. Both the a8rawconv and the raw files made by the Kryoflux software are in the same folder. Made sure I'm in the right place with 'pwd'. But I get :

 

'-bash: a8rawconv: command not found'

 

I am using a8rawconv MECCtrack00.0.raw MECC.atx

 

Allan

 

 

[toddtmw]

Has anyone got the Mac OS X version of this to work? I'm struggling to get a8rawconv to work.

 

I am using Terminal. Both the a8rawconv and the raw files made by the Kryoflux software are in the same folder. Made sure I'm in the right place with 'pwd'. But I get :

 

'-bash: a8rawconv: command not found'

 

I am using a8rawconv MECCtrack00.0.raw MECC.atx

 

Allan

 

 

 

Did you try putting a ./ in front of the command?

./a8rawconv MECCtrack00.0.raw MECC.atx

[+Allan]

That was it. Thanks. I'm getting a bunch of 'Invalid sector number' messages but it did actually run the program and write an ATX. I will look at it some more after work.

 

Thank You,

Allan

[ijor]

I'm getting a bunch of 'Invalid sector number' messages but it did actually run the program and write an ATX.

 

That is normal for some disks.

[+Allan]

 

That is normal for some disks.

Thanks. Good to know. Looking forward to copying all the disks I have.

 

Allan

[luckybuck]

Hi together,

Hope, I have rebuild a very rare disk by:

./a8rawconv -b -l -if kryoflux -of atx -v SYNFILEPLUS00.0.raw SYNFILEPLUS00.0.atx

and got just one error:

Writing ATX file: SYNFILEPLUS00.0.atx
WARNING: Track 39, sector 17: Stable CRC error detected at position 0.89.
0 missing sectors, 0 phantom sectors, 1 sector with errors
Did I miss something? The atx seems to work.

Thanky you for helping.

[Farb]

Hi together,

Hope, I have rebuild a very rare disk by:

./a8rawconv -b -l -if kryoflux -of atx -v SYNFILEPLUS00.0.raw SYNFILEPLUS00.0.atx

and got just one error:

Writing ATX file: SYNFILEPLUS00.0.atx

WARNING: Track 39, sector 17: Stable CRC error detected at position 0.89.

0 missing sectors, 0 phantom sectors, 1 sector with errors

Did I miss something? The atx seems to work.

Thanky you for helping.

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to dump this title. What you are seeing is a8rawconv reporting the copy protection it found. In this case, it's a stable CRC error.

[GlowingGhoul]

So is the last development version (weaktest) the one to use?

[Pheonix]

Any plans to correctly convert phantom sectors to SCP? It works OK with just a single sector or 2, but some disks have several. Archon II, for example, has 17. Results in an SCP file that I cannot convert or write correctly to disk. Unless I'm missing something, which is actually fairly likely

 

[Zarxx]

Can you explain what it is you are trying to do and I'll see if I can help?

 

Are you creating an SCP from an original floppy or converting from a previous backup ATX/SCP?

Do you have any example files you can attach?

[ijor]

Any plans to correctly convert phantom sectors to SCP? It works OK with just a single sector or 2, but some disks have several. Archon II, for example, has 17. Results in an SCP file that I cannot convert or write correctly to disk. Unless I'm missing something, which is actually fairly likely

 

The problem is not exactly converting double (phantom) sectors. The problem is converting short, overlapped sectors, as those tracks must have, because otherwise it won't fit. Reconstructing such a track is not a trivial task at all. It has been on my TODO list for quite some time (possibly on Phaeron's one as well ) For these cases (they are not too many), it is better to write back directly from an original SCP image.

[Pheonix]

I was afraid of that I don't have access to the original SCP (actually Kryoflux in my case,) files any more. I actually convert from the archived ATX files to SCP with a8rawconv. Then from SCP to Kryoflux with HxC. I haven't had a problem untill my Archon II disk failed. Then I discovered the problem with the ATX archive Can still play it in emulation, of course. But I can no longer play it on original HW Was hoping it was something you were working on, and could expect it in the next release.

 

I figured it was the overlapping that was causing the problem. I'm only an amateur programmer, so it's probably beyond my ability to work with

[Zarxx]

I was afraid of that I don't have access to the original SCP (actually Kryoflux in my case,) files any more. I actually convert from the archived ATX files to SCP with a8rawconv. Then from SCP to Kryoflux with HxC. I haven't had a problem untill my Archon II disk failed. Then I discovered the problem with the ATX archive Can still play it in emulation, of course. But I can no longer play it on original HW Was hoping it was something you were working on, and could expect it in the next release.

 

I figured it was the overlapping that was causing the problem. I'm only an amateur programmer, so it's probably beyond my ability to work with

 

Well... here's mine. Enjoy!

 

 

Archon II - SCPs.zip

[Pheonix]

Thanks you greatly Now to go through my archive, and re-image all the ones that have a similar problem. Keeping my fingers crossed that no more disks fail before then. Unlike some others, I'm not exceptionally worried about preservation integrity... As long as the resulting disks are close enough that real HW can't tell the difference, I'm happy. Don't like cracking things, unless its absolutely necessary.

 

I imagine most of my ATX files can stay that way. But some will need to be re-imaged and kept as a flux level dump. I'll probably convert the Kryoflux files to SCP format. Mainly so I'm archiving 1 files instead of the 40-168 files that the Kryoflux generates. The Kryoflux creators promised a unified, single file, format. But it never materialized. That's going to take a bit of time, though After I'm done, I'll probably be back begging for SCP files (or Kryoflux,) of the ones that are failing. Most of my original disks just don't work any more, mainly due to age. Of course, there are quite a few, I probably won't worry about, even if they fail. I just didn't care much for those games.

[phaeron]

Why not just zip up the Kryoflux files instead of converting them? There are some things that don't convert cleanly to SCP, such as partial tracks.

[Pheonix]

I'm probably going to go a different route after all. Keep the ATX files, just add in the tracks that won't convert back to the archive as well. So with Archon II (for example,) I'd have the ATX file and the raw flux file for track 2 (actually track 4 with single step numbering.) Then I use my normal method of converting to raw flux files and then copy the problematical track over. Ends up with much smaller files. Which, with a KF dump can be several MB instead of less than 100 KB.

[F#READY]

What is the reason to have smaller files? For long term preservation it's best practice to keep the files close to the source (the raw dumps).

 

Derived files (e.g. ATX, PRO) can be used for testing and as publication format for emulators.

 

Or maybe I'm missing something?

[tschak909]

I tried to write Pinball Construction Set from the Atari Preserved Software archive to a disk using my SuperCard Pro setup.

 

I'm currently using a Qumetrak 142 drive which has been okay at writing various ATR formatted disks (so I could bootstrap my daughter's use of floppies on her XEGS).

 

$ a8rawconv.exe Pinball\ Construction\ Set\ \(1983\)\(Electronic\ Arts\)\(US\).atx scp1:48tpi
A8 raw disk conversion utility v0.92
Copyright (C) 2014-2016 Avery Lee, All Rights Reserved.
Licensed under GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.

WARNING: Track  2, sector  5: 1 phantom sector found.
Detected SCP port: COM4.
Initializing SCP device.
SCP version info: hardware version 1.1, firmware version 1.2
Detecting drive RPM... 300 RPM (actual 298.93 RPM)
Writing track 0: 78110 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 1: 75458 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 2: 67106 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 3: 74582 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 4: 74494 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 5: 74690 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 6: 74486 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 7: 74730 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 8: 74622 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 9: 74682 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 10: 77994 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 11: 81698 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 12: 78070 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 13: 78902 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 14: 78718 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 15: 79102 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 16: 77702 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 17: 81054 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 18: 79638 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 19: 79610 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 20: 85234 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 21: 80594 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 22: 82002 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 23: 81866 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 24: 81870 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 25: 79234 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 26: 79242 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 27: 79270 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 28: 79226 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 29: 79262 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 30: 79278 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 31: 79306 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 32: 79178 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 33: 79206 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 34: 79198 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 35: 79234 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 36: 79206 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 37: 79234 bytes, delay 0.011
Writing track 38: 79234 bytes, delay 0.012
Writing track 39: 79270 bytes, delay 0.011

The resulting disk fails the initial phantom sector check, I suspect.

 

-Thom

Pinball Construction Set (1983)(Electronic Arts)(US).atx

[phaeron]

On 10/8/2019 at 10:27 PM, tschak909 said:

I tried to write Pinball Construction Set from the Atari Preserved Software archive to a disk using my SuperCard Pro setup.

 

I'm currently using a Qumetrak 142 drive which has been okay at writing various ATR formatted disks (so I could bootstrap my daughter's use of floppies on her XEGS).

 

The resulting disk fails the initial phantom sector check, I suspect.

 

-Thom

Pinball Construction Set (1983)(Electronic Arts)(US).atx 97.99 kB · 1 download

Probably due to the 19 sectors making that track a bit tight and causing a slight track overrun. The typical diagnostic for writing issues is to have a8rawconv re-image the written disk to see if it finds problems in the written disk. 0.92 has some problems with this occasionally -- I need to get around to finishing the changes I have in flight as my dev branch has some improvements to the flux encoding code and is able to write this image to successfully boot on a 1050.

 

[NF6X]

Hi! I just wandered in here after seeing a post on the SuperCard Pro forum stating that a8rawconv also supports Apple II disks.

 

Is version 0.92 the latest version of a8rawconv? Is there a canonical place to find the latest version other than this thread?

[phaeron]

9 minutes ago, NF6X said:

Hi! I just wandered in here after seeing a post on the SuperCard Pro forum stating that a8rawconv also supports Apple II disks.

 

Is version 0.92 the latest version of a8rawconv? Is there a canonical place to find the latest version other than this thread?

This is the right place, I've only posted it here.

 

a8rawconv supports decoding images to two 5.25" Apple II formats, DOS 3.3 (.DO/.DSK), and raw nibble data (.NIB). This mode is auto-selected when you tell the tool to output to a file with one of those extensions. Just a warning, these format decoders haven't been extensively tested -- IIRC I implemented them while helping to archive a couple of Apple II disks and only tested it with those. The Apple II disk format also has a very flimsy checksum that can pass even if the sectors are corrupted, so you'll definitely want to check the contents of any decoded disks. The tool does not currently support the Apple II 3.5" formats, however.

 

[NF6X]

Thank you!