49 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
49 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
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Silent Service Unprotect
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This file will tell you how to unprotect "Silent Service" by Micro
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Prose. To complete this unprotection you will need the following:
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1. A good backup program. (i.e. DISK MECHANIC)
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2. FIXSS.COM included on this disk.
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BACKGROUND: The copy protection scheme used by Micro Prose on Silent Service
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is very good. I have found no commercial copy program that can
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make a usable backup copy of this disk. The Silent Service master
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disk has track 10 specially made. Track 10 has 16 sector ids on it
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instead of the normal 8 or 9. Using DISK MECHANIC, track 10 will be
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reproduced with only 8-10 ids on it. When Silent Service boots up it
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verifies that all 16 sector ids exists. The sectors on track 10
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contain no usable data. Silent Service just makes sure that they
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exists. Knowing this we can go in and patch Silent Service so that
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it doesn't check track 10 at all. After patching the program we
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can go in and re-format track 10 to normal sector size. Finally,
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the makers on Silent Service, did one more little trick to prevent
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DISKCOPY from working. On track 12 side one, the sectors are in
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sequential order. This screws up DISKCOPY into thinking the disk
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drive door is open, when it is not. We must re-format the track to
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normal and put the data back. Also, just for kicks, we observed
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that there was no FAT table on this disk, but that the space where
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a FAT table would go was not used, so we put a FAT table out there.
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The will make the disk look like it really is a double-side 8
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sectors/track disk to DOS. This allows DISKCOPY to know how the
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disk is formatted. With this done, you will have a working copy of
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Silent Service that can be copied by DISKCOPY.COM.
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Now I realize that most of you probably won't understand most of
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what I just said up there. That's OK. We provided a small program
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FIXSS.COM that does most of the work for you.
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Step 1: Make a backup copy of your master Silent Service disk using
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DISK MECHANIC. Silent Service is double-sided. Once you have copied
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the master disk put it away. You will not be needing it again.
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NOTE: The backup copy just made will not function ... yet. When you are done
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with Step 2, the disk will be DISKCOPYable.
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Step 2: Put copy of Silent Service into drive A. Then execute the FIXSS
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program. This program will make all the patches to the game for
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you. When it has completed you will have a DISKCOPYable version of
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the game.
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