#477 Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (1989)(U.S. Gold)(+3).dsk not loading properly
Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (1989)(U.S. Gold)(+3).dsk not loading properly.
The load sequence:
RECALIBRATE
READ_DATA CYL: 0 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 2 EOT: 1 -> 512byte
SEEK HD: 0 US: 0 NCN: 2
RECALIBRATE
READ_DATA CYL: 0 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 2 EOT: 1 -> 512byte
SEEK HD: 0 US: 0 NCN: 0
READ_DATA CYL: 0 HEAD: 0 REC: 2 LEN: 2 EOT: 10 -> 5632byte
SEEK HD: 0 US: 0 NCN: 1
READ_DATA CYL: 1 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 6 EOT: 1 -> 22901byte, OR!
READ_DATA CYL: 1 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 6 EOT: 1 -> 18899byte, OR!
SEEK HD: 0 US: 0 NCN: 2
READ_DATA CYL: 2 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 6 EOT: 1 -> 22933byte, OR!
READ_DATA CYL: 2 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 6 EOT: 1 -> 19126byte, OR!
SEEK HD: 0 US: 0 NCN: 3
...
SEEK HD: 0 US: 0 NCN: 17
READ_DATA CYL: 17 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 6 EOT: 1 -> 19699byte, OR!
SEEK HD: 0 US: 0 NCN: 18
READ_DATA CYL: 18 HEAD: 0 REC: 1 LEN: 6 EOT: 1 -> 0byte, ND, MA!
OR: ST1 OverRun bit
ND: ST1 NoData bit
MA: ST1 Missing Address Mark
BTW: in dsk, Cyl 18,19,20 is empty, there is no data -> not formatted.
Is this an original game ? Or maybe some professional Disk port?
It could be that it has its own disk loader and expects some sector to be not formatted as part of copy protection.
I have one game on a D40 floppy, which cannot load for Didaktik 40/80.
I think the reason there is that 1-2 sectors were not formatted on purpose as part of a copy protection. I've seen that as red sectors when scanning that floppy. Plus that floppy was formatted with non standard number of sectors per track.
As this info is lost when data is converted into plain binary files (it is recorded only in log files of the scan process), such sectors end up being empty (zeroes).
Maybe this could be the same case.
In this situation, we would need to brainstorm some way how to record (on specific or each disk image formats) and implement support for triggering sector not found error on purpose.
What do you think ?
Hi,
The disk image is from TOSEC archive.: https://archive.org/details/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum_TOSEC_2012_04_23
There are two disk image file format (Extended DSK and UDI) which can contain non standard tracks and other (meta) data (e.g. controller ic status registers). Other image formats only contain plain data bytes.
https://sinclair.wiki.zxnet.co.uk/wiki/Category:Complex_Disk_Image_Formats
http://cpctech.cpc-live.com/docs/extdsk.html
https://sinclair.wiki.zxnet.co.uk/wiki/UDI_format
The DSK/EDSK format specific for μPD765, so you should have a look at CPDRead (i never use disk conversion tool so i cannot know any further)
https://cpcrulez.fr/emulateurs_UTIL-DSK-cpdread.htm
Gergely