Best way to restore orginal disks

[Potemkyn]

I have several game disks (M.U.L.E. Archon, and SSI's Task Force) that will no longer boot and I would like to restore to working order again.

 

What are some of the best methods, and which are easier?

 

Some details:

 

• I have a working 800 and a 400 with 48K
• I have several 1050 working drives and ordered a Happy kit (it is still in it's bag).
• I have some utilities disks that may be of use, like Copymate 4.1, DOS 2.5, Indus Disk
• I have working copies of some of the disks (M.U.L.E. Archon)
• I have several of the disk files on my PC (somewhere)

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Mike

 

[+bob1200xl]

OK... these are factory disks, right? 'Won't boot' means what exactly? Reads first 18 sectors and then hangs?

 

Pretty much three ways that a disk goes 'bad'.

 

Someone writes over your data: Should not be possible with a write-protected disk, but we're talking about something went 'wrong' because you can't read them anymore. If this is the case, you can read the new data but that won't get you a good boot. Lots of possibilities here - we'll leave this one till last.

 

The disk sleeve is 'binding': The media should rotate freely in the jacket. Crud built up on the inside of the disk will slow you down or even stop disk rotation. Take the top cover off and watch the latch close on the disk. If the speed seems to vary as you latch the drive, you may have sleeve problems. You can cut the media out of the jacket and insert it into a new, good disk in order to recover data. Then, throw it away.

 

The magnetic coating has been damaged: Probably the first thing you should look for are wear rings anywhere on the media. Could be wrinkles from when you stepped on it - anything but smooth, uniform surface. Check both sides. If it isn't too severe, you might recover most or all of the old data.

 

Did you notice that none of these scenarios get you a 'good' factory disk? Of course not... Trash your bad disks and get some new factory ones if you aren't trying to recover data. If you have backups/disk images/working copies (whazzat?), use them.

 

Bob