Copy Ultima V from 5.25" to 3.5" disk

[olePigeon]

I had an Apple //e when I was a kid, so I never got to use 3.5" floppies. I have IIgs now that I got from my neighbor, and I've never copied files before. I downloaded Copy II+ from Asimov and wrote it to a 5.25" disk easily enough using ADT.

I tried a File copy of all the Ultima V files to a 3.5" ProDOS floppy. It seemed to copy OK, but I get the "Could not load ProDOS" error when I try to boot form it.

I have never done this before, so I'm flying blind. Is it even possible to copy Ultima V to a 3.5" floppy? Or how about a HDD should I ever get a SCSI card?

Just wondering. Wanted to increase boot times and stuff for Ultima.

 

[H3NRY]

I haven't tried this, but you did initialize the disk in ProDOS? Since DOS 3.3 doesn't support 3.5" disks, You can't easily INIT a 3.5" disk with DOS boot code. The ProDOS boot sectors are trying to find the ProDOS files. There were some 3rd party utilities for using UniDisk 3.5 with DOS. They would INIT an 800K disk as two DOS volumes, or as two drives, since DOS maximum disk size is 400K.

I have no idea whether if you INITed a 3.5" disk for DOS whether Copy II+ could copy Ultima. That would depend entirely on the copy-protection scheme. I'd say unless you're a pretty good cracker your chances are slim. Maybe there's a cracked version of the game somewhere. Haararrr!

 

[olePigeon]

Supposedly there's a crack for it, but I don't know anyone who has it.

I found a program called "The Mover" that partitions an 800k floppy into 5 140K partitions with a boot menu, but it failed to load Ultima 5. :/

Was worth a shot. Maybe someone will find the mod for it. In some of the old Computertist magazines there's an Q&A editorial about DinkeyDOS and its use with Ultima 5 and other games. Various mods were proposed, including one that seemed really cool, which was modifying it into thinking the required disks were actually directories. I have no idea what became of that.