SD Snatcher - Original Disk 1 overwritten with cracked and translated version

Supporter (12)

06-12-2021, 18:25

I discovered something weird while creating a dump of a boxed game:
Mind you, this is a boxed version of SD Snatcher with manual, disks with proper label and 'Konami' on the metal part, and a red user disk with the sticker provided in the original box. After dumping the disks I converted the Scenario Disk 1 to dmk and loaded it in openMSX. To my surprise it greets me with "translated into English by Oasis. Copy Protection by Xelasoft". Since I am convinced that this is an original game and the disks can be set to write enabled, I believe the original owner wrote the cracked and translated version onto the original disk. Was this common in those days? I suspect the person did it for the translation, since e.g. in Illusion City box of the same collection was, next to the original, an extra disk with a cracked and translated version.

Since I plan to sell this game (and I will either way def. state this overwritten or restored data in the description), should I just leave it like it is, or overwrite again with an unmodified dump (have to find one)?

By Grauw

Ascended (10860)

06-12-2021, 18:32

Hmm, that’s not so nice.

The problem with writing back the original data is that the original game has a copy protection and it is difficult to restore that in its original form from a disk image. Ideally you’d only restore the sectors that were patched by the translation… (IF the original copy protection is still on there.) But I don’t know a good tool to do that, and which sectors contain the write protection and should not be overwritten. Maybe someone else knows.

If you feel this is getting too complicated, I would just not touch them at all.

By pokemontrainer

Supporter (12)

06-12-2021, 18:33

Grauw wrote:

Hmm, that’s not so nice.

The problem with writing back the original data is that there is a copy protection on there and it is difficult to write that in its original form from a disk image. Ideally you’d only restore the sectors that were patched by the translation… But I don’t know a good tool to do that, and which sectors contain the write protection and should not be overwritten. Maybe someone else knows.

If you feel this is getting too complicated, I would just not touch them at all.

I have a Kryoflux that allows me to create and write-back extremely accurate dumps including bad sectors etc. Though I don't know anyone that has such dumps of SD snatcher (I only need disk 1 AFAIK) in Kryoflux stream format. I would def. test this with another disk first though.

By Grauw

Ascended (10860)

06-12-2021, 18:37

Ah ok I was about to edit in that to preserve copy protections you need dedicated equipment, but it seems that you do . In that case I guess you’re looking for another person who owns both a Kryoflux and an original copy of SD Snatcher.

(btw I think the translation is applied to all three disks, not just the first?)

By sdsnatcher73

Enlighted (4467)

06-12-2021, 18:37

I have sent DMK dumps of SD Snatcher to tfh so they are available for download. I can also create PDI images which should be able to recreate the protection on an MSX (although I have not tried that).

By sdsnatcher73

Enlighted (4467)

06-12-2021, 18:39

Alternatively you can write the cracked Japanese version (the crack is good and does not introduce any issues).

By pokemontrainer

Supporter (12)

06-12-2021, 18:52

sdsnatcher73 wrote:

I cannot find it in the DMK folder sadly. A PDI would def. be helpful, though if you have DMKs they should also contain the bad sectors as in the original disk.

By tfh

Prophet (3491)

06-12-2021, 19:06

sdsnatcher73 wrote:

I was (and still am) a bit behind with working through all stuff in my "to-do" list, but.... I've added these .DMK images to the downloadsite. Together with some others which you have sent me. Thanks, (again!)

By tfh

Prophet (3491)

06-12-2021, 19:07

pokemontrainer wrote:

sdsnatcher73 wrote:

I cannot find it in the DMK folder sadly. A PDI would def. be helpful, though if you have DMKs they should also contain the bad sectors as in the original disk.

Try Again... Please not it's called "Super Deform Snatcher" in that directory and not "SD Snatcher".

By pokemontrainer

Supporter (12)

06-12-2021, 20:51

tfh wrote:

pokemontrainer wrote:

sdsnatcher73 wrote:

I cannot find it in the DMK folder sadly. A PDI would def. be helpful, though if you have DMKs they should also contain the bad sectors as in the original disk.

Try Again... Please not it's called "Super Deform Snatcher" in that directory and not "SD Snatcher".

Cool, thanks a lot, also for all your other efforts with hosting and archiving all this cool MSX stuff (soon even more with all things from this collection).

By TheKid

Paragon (1238)

07-12-2021, 09:33

Hmm, I hope it was not common, although my nephew had the same problem. Bought sd-snatcher for 160 euros (somewhere around the year 2000), came home, put in disk 1 and was greeted by oasis. He was in shock. My father had an atari, with (i believe) xcopy, so I copied my originals back to his disks, only to find out disk two had bad sectors and the disk mades that horrible sound. But even with this problem, he could play the game afterwards, and the copy protection was working aswell.