[Solved] After Dark "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Screensaver

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2013, June 8 - 12:56am

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

[Solved] After Dark "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Screensaver

If anyone has or locates Berkeley Systems "After Dark: Star Trek The Next Generation", Screensaver on floppy disk. Can you please make Disk Copy (preferably Disk Copy 4.2) images of this and upload it to the "After Dark - Star Trek: The Next Generation" page. Whats now up there is not the original media.

I was recently given the floppy disks for this and both disks were damaged & fubar. It would be great to have this archived. Thanks.

[EDIT]: This request entry has ended. It was solved thanks entirely to macjames's diligence in archiving. Thank you.

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2013, June 9 - 6:57pm

macjames

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Joined: 2013 Apr 14

I want to kill myself. I have this on a CD but it seems age has affected it. Can't copy the file from it after trying like 10 CD-rom units. I Left toast overnight to try to recover it but it was no good the file can be copied now but it is corrupt. I have another images that seem to be disk copy images but have lost their resource fork. Putting the type and creator with resedit is not helping. Trying to convert them with Disk Utility under OS X is not helping either. Dragging onto stuffit expander only gives shrinkwrap engine error. Any other ideas?

2013, June 10 - 3:21am

(Reply to #2) #3

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Hi macjames. Thank you for looking and trying. So please don't think about ending it all!

What you can try, if you have the patience to, with the Disk Copy images w/o a resource fork.

If they are uncompressed Disk images of some kind they can be mounted in an emulator's window (Basilisk II or SheepShaver), by either assigning them as disks to mount in the emu's GUI app, or by dragging them onto a running emulator's desktop window.

A missing resource fork is not a problem in this case. But the disk images data has to be in good shape. So if they don't mount using the above 2 methods in an emulator, then they probably are unrecoverably damaged too - or compressed Disk Copy 6.x disk images which will never mount using the above two methods.

Important: Before attempting this; Lock the disk images, to prevent the Mac OS from updating the floppies desktop database (writing to the disk) once mounted. Ignore and dismiss any Finder "failure to re-build the desktop dialog" that may pop up.

If they mount onto your emulator's desktop. Great. We're in business.

Using either Disk Copy 6.3 or ShrinkWrap 2.1 - preferably ShrinkWrap 2.1 as it creates the better Disk Copy 4.2 file than Disk Copy 6.3 does (SW 2.1 stores tag data). Choose to create an image from disk, choosing the mounted floppy disk image and save it somewhere handy.

And that's it. Archive with Stuffit and upload.

If you use ShrinkWrap 2.1, you need to set it to create Disk Copy 4.2 images from floppy disks in the ShrinkWrap Preferences. Also. Do not use Aladdin's ShrinkWrap 3.x, they dumbed down 2.1's unique Disk Copy 4.2 feature and the results are not nearly as good (no longer preserves tag data).

Thanks and Good Luck.

2013, June 10 - 7:21am

(Reply to #3) #4

macjames

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Joined: 2013 Apr 14

They seem compressed disk images because one is 1.3MB and the other one 1.2MB. Strange enough, toast recognizes them as HFS CDrom images, but any attempt to mount them fails. I burned them onto CD, the cd's won't mount, but i get no error either from the finder. I may try the emulator thing later. Right now i am trying to recover all i can from my old CD collection, it's 35 CDs and 7 of them have become unreadable on the last 10-15% portion of the disk. I find incredible that floppies and magnetic tapes are surviving better the "pass of time" (is that right?).

2013, June 10 - 10:08am

(Reply to #4) #5

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Although they may be compressed, it is not necessarily so. Disk Copy 6.x especially will truncate (zero) the unwritten-to space on a disk, whether it is set to compress an image or not. Other disk imaging programs may also do this. So do try the emulator route if you can, especially on floppy disk images that you cannot access normally because of missing resource forks.

The "passage of time" affects us all - now, if only I could "back myself up"

2013, June 10 - 9:44pm

macjames

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Joined: 2013 Apr 14

Good news! I found the very same files in .bin format and they are already on diskcopy 4.2 format.. uploading them in a few moments...

2013, June 11 - 12:48am

(Reply to #6) #7

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Fantastic. That's a lot less futzing around for you. They look to be in good shape too. They appear to be Disk Copy 6 saved as Disk Copy 4.2, but hey I can live with that

This means I can now restore those floppy disks I was given. I hope the rest of your softwares are also as recoverable.

This Resquest has been solved. Many thanks, macjames.

2013, June 11 - 4:34am

macjames

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Joined: 2013 Apr 14

Thanks for the good wishes. It seems i have been able to recover most stuff but there are plenty of applications and games that i could have uploaded because they are not here in the garden but now i fear they are lost forever. Maybe i should post a request list and see what happens.

2013, June 11 - 10:56am

(Reply to #8) #9

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Maybe i should post a request list and see what happens.

It won't hurt to ask. With a bit of luck I might have something you'll ask for.

However. If some of those unrecoverables have come off as disk images without resource forks, I also recommend you try the emulation route in the steps outlined above. This has worked for me when nothing else would. Its also brain-dead easy, once you have set it up for this kind of recovery. As long as the disk images were not compressed to begin with, there is a good chance of success. This has worked well for me in the past.

There's nothing to lose by trying, either.

2013, June 11 - 7:44am

#10

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

I have lost 2 CDs that way. I feel for you macjames.

You can in some instances recover the files from Windows/Linux, albeit without resource forks. If you cannot get a directory listing, things are going to go badly for you. If you have a sizable collection, it may be an idea to look at dvd-disaster on Linux, which can rebuild damaged CDs/DVDs from a checksum file (which can be sizable itself). Linux can mount and work with HFS discs, and also has tools to work with resource-fork files (hfstools?). Anyway, worth a looksee if you want peace of mind.