Hi
I contacted a software developer to open source some of his OS/2 software.
But he sent me a lot of .dat files. He told me that this packed files was made with BA/2, but he no longer has an OS/2 machine or that software to unpack them.
I tried Back Again /2000 4.10, and I'm getting some errors while trying to open this file. (check the screenshots)
If anybody can give me a hand explaining me how to unpack this files I will appreciate it. I'm also attaching one .dat file if you want to try.
Regards
QuoteIf anybody can give me a hand explaining me how to unpack this files I will appreciate it.
My guess would be that the file is from an older version of BA/2. Do you have an original date on the file (the one that I just downloaded has today's date)? That might help to identify which version of BA/2 to try. I have (but not installed) BA2KWS3. I also have a CD labeled BackAgain/2000, from 1999. I think that is version 2. I even have a Back Again/2 version 1.10 (on a diskette). I will attempt to install the older versions, on my test machine, tomorrow. Hopefully, I can find any registration that I might need.
I seem to remember having problems reading older .dat files with BA/2 (tried different version) when the system date was too advanced. I set the date to something about year 2000 or 2005 and it worked. Maybe this was a licensing problem with my version but worth a try. I for myself do not use Back Again since many years....
I tried BA/2 1.1, BA/2K 2.10, 3.00, and 4.10. BA/2 1.1 insists that it needs a matching *.CAT file. The rest all reject it with the error that you are seeing.
Is it possible that the files were FTPed, using ASCII mode?
Thanks for helping me out.
The .dat files I have has dates from 1998/01 to 1997/01.
I don't have any .cat archive included on those files. I'm not sure if the author has it anymore.
About if if the files were FTPed using ASCII mode, I really can not know. The files were sent to me via dropbox, but I don't know if they were expose to that on the past.
If anybody has any other idea please let me know.
QuoteThe .dat files I have has dates from 1998/01 to 1997/01
That probably means that they are from BA/2 1.x. BA2K 2.10 has file dates of 1999. I will see if I can figure out what BA/2 needs. It has been a long time since I tried using that version. There may be some way to use the raw files, or extract a *.CAT file from it. I will also try changing the date, but I am not hopeful that that will make any difference.
Okay. possibly some progress. It seems that BA/2 1.1 can recover a catalog from the files. It also seems that the files might be taken from the specially formatted (by BA/2) diskettes. I formatted a diskette, and copied the sample file to it. Now, the catalog recovery tool reads the file, however, it seems that that file is part one of more than one, so it cannot find the end of the backup because I don't have the rest of it. It just asks for the next diskette.
E-mail me at dougb007 at telus.net and we can probably figure something out. A list of the files that you have, might help to determine what might be a complete backup set.
Thanks DougB.
Let me upload somewhere all the .dat files I have and I will write you tonight.
It appears that the files were created by BackAgain/2 version 1.x (probably 1.10). I have BA/2 version 1.10 installed. The files do not have any catalog files with them, so I need to recover the catalogs from the *.DAT files. I have tried many ways, but the closest I get causes an entry in POPUPLOG.OS2:
04-22-2012 11:23:00 SYS3171 PID 00c5 TID 0002 Slot 0083
C:\BA2\BACKUP.EXE
c0000005
1ec00832
P1=00000002 P2=00adfff4 P3=XXXXXXXX P4=XXXXXXXX
EAX=00000000 EBX=00152080 ECX=00152080 EDX=00000002
ESI=000100bf EDI=00000000
DS=0053 DSACC=f0f3 DSLIM=ffffffff
ES=0053 ESACC=f0f3 ESLIM=ffffffff
FS=150b FSACC=00f3 FSLIM=00000030
GS=0000 GSACC=**** GSLIM=********
CS:EIP=005b:1ec00832 CSACC=f0df CSLIM=ffffffff
SS:ESP=0053:00adfff8 SSACC=f0f3 SSLIM=ffffffff
EBP=00ae0004 FLG=00010212
BCBBPCRT.DLL 0001:00000832
To be sure that the install was good, I made a new backup of a directory on the system, deleted the *.CAT file, and used BA/2 to recover the catalog from the *.DAT file. That works, so I think I am using the proper procedure, and the install is good. I also tried the suggestion to set the date back (to 1998), but that didn't change anything.
I am suspicious that the files have been corrupted somehow, but I hate to give up that easy. Anybody got any ideas?
I tried with Object Backup from OD (this is a "light" version of BackAgain 4.0) and got similar result - the files appears to be recognized as valid .DAT file, as soon as you try to recover the .CAT file, you get an error.
Do we eventueally have a binary versus text download issue somewhere in the chain?
QuoteDo we eventueally have a binary versus text download issue somewhere in the chain?
I suspect that it may have happened, at some time, or another. I don''t think that the recent activity was the cause though, because the two ZIP files that are included in the whole package, are okay. If it is true,that it was a text up/download, at some time, I don't think we will get anything useful out of the DAT files, unless somebody knows how to reverse the damage.
I think that BA/2(K) only checks the file extension for validity. It appears that you can take any file, put a DAT extension on it, and the program will attempt to find useful data in it.
I have a few more things to try, but I am not hopeful.
I give up.
I can make a new backup, with BA/2 1.10, delete the catalog file, and recover it, with no problem. Trying to recover data from that backup, using BA/2K 4.10 gives me the errors that martin describes at the beginning of this thread, so it seems that the files need to be recovered, using the version of BA/2 that created them (and, I am doing it properly). The file dates are 1997/98, so it would be BA/2 v 1.0, or 1.10 that created them. I do not have BA/2 1.0, so I can't try that. I did try v2.10, 3.10, and 4.10, and got the same results as Martin did. It appears that the DAT files are damaged somehow (or they are not BA/2 backup files).
If anybody has any other ideas (or BA/2 1.0), please contact Martin, or post here.
I will leave it up to Martin to discuss the contents of the two ZIP files, that do have valid data in them.
While I also don't have a solution, I did a hex glance at the files, to look for typical patterns found in binary files that were corrupted by a text vs binary download. These patterns are NOT present in the files - so I'd say that my previous assumption is wrong quite likely.
The files *might be* in fact ok, so it looks like you really need the appropriate version to recover the catalogs and restore them.
I found BA2PR201.ZIP on the "IBM PRESENTS OS/2 WARP SOFTWARE HITS SECOND EDITION 1995". This is Back Again/2 Professional Edition v2.01a Demo. With this version it is possible to restore the *.CAT files from the *.DAT files. However, I could not restore the actual backups. Fortunately it contains also a standalone restore utility with which I was able to restore the backups even without requiring any *.CAT files.
RESTORE /R F=G G:\OS2STUFF
is the command line to use and you are prompted "To select a Backup Set to Restore". G:\OS2STUFF contains my *.DAT files. F=G restores to drive G rather than to drive F as may be dictated (but alas not shown) in the Backup Set that you choose.
Wim.
Thanks for trying to open the files.
This files belonged to Gary L. Robinson. He sent me his OS/2 source code backup and some are on .dat format.
There was some zip files from which I had released as open source:
- ZipZap
- MailRUN
But he used to be developers of this software too. I was hoping to open that .dat files and release the source code of:
- Stats
- NetChat
- ClipBoard Text Utility
- Desktop Wizard
- Prompt!
- CmdHere
If anybody has any luck or ideas please let me know.
Thanks
Hi Wim
Checking your post, using the file you posted and testing the files I have, there had been some progress uncompressing the .dat files.
Using restore I was able to uncompress several .dat files. The trick seems that the author of the .dat files has used different drive letter for each .dat files. So I had to restore it like:
RESTORE /R F=D C:\OS2STUFF
RESTORE /R G=D C:\OS2STUFF
..according to each .dat file drive.
But now it is late. I will see the status of uncompressed file tomorrow.
Thank you very much.
I had recover some of the source code and I will be posting it for the public under the GNU GPL V2 license.
Thank you very much to everyone that give me the hint with BA/2.
It will be interesting if someone can check the ZipZap source code and see if it can extract a serial number to don't use it as shareware anymore, or even better if it can be built without the shareware notice.
The binaries and source code are on hobbes:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?sh=1&button=Search&key=ZipZap_1-27
Had a quick look at it yesterday but have to write a new makefile. Seems it was built with a real old icc which predates my OS/2 programming experience :-) Neither nmake from icc3.08 nor wmake does like the included one.
Thanks Andy. It seems like the author used something called VISPRO/C for his development.
Thanks to the tips provided on this thread I was able to uncompressed some of the .dat files and recover some source code of Gary L. Robinson OS/2 apps.
I had publish on Hobbes the binaries and source code of:
- ZipZap: WPS integrated zip tool to compress file with right click.
- MailRUN: POP mail checker
- Stats: WPS tool to see the folder stats on the window tittle
- NetChat: Chat tool
- CMDHere: Tool that provides WPS integrated CMD calls (like the one on xworkplace)
- DataPad: A "scratch pad" to put notes.
The only bad thing is that all are shareware versions and I was unable to get a registration code, and since I don't have developer skills I was not able to remove the registration request screens.
I personally think that this two tools may be interesting today:
- ZipZap: WPS integrated zip tool to compress file with right click.
- Stats: WPS tool to see the folder stats on the window tittle.
If anybody finds a registration code or a way to remove the shareware request screens of this apps please let me know.
Quote from: miturbide on 2012.05.11, 18:49:28
I personally think that this two tools may be interesting today:
- ZipZap: WPS integrated zip tool to compress file with right click.
- Stats: WPS tool to see the folder stats on the window tittle.
Martin, I hate to say that:
Since XWP exists, that's not such a great feature anymore. Open-sourcing these packages
is exactly 10 years late.
Andreas
Andreas, It is better late than never. :D
Quote from: aschn on 2012.05.11, 22:28:47
Since XWP exists, that's not such a great feature anymore. Open-sourcing these packages
is exactly 10 years late.
I'm glad that Martin reached out and was able to obtain source code to OS/2 programs and it doesn't matter how old the programs are as someone somewhere will find them useful. Remember, someone may not actually use the program itself but read the source to learn more about how to program for OS/2. There's more benefits to open source programs than simply overlapping one of your favorite programs.
I think your statement is narrow-minded and over-generalized. It also speaks nothing of Martin's efforts to help out the OS/2 community at large and not your over-inflated sense of what's good and what's not good for the OS/2 community.
Quote from: hausmaus on 2012.05.14, 04:41:49
Quote from: aschn on 2012.05.11, 22:28:47
Since XWP exists, that's not such a great feature anymore. Open-sourcing these packages
is exactly 10 years late.
I'm glad that Martin reached out and was able to obtain source code to OS/2 programs and it doesn't matter how old the programs are as someone somewhere will find them useful. Remember, someone may not actually use the program itself but read the source to learn more about how to program for OS/2. There's more benefits to open source programs than simply overlapping one of your favorite programs.
I think your statement is narrow-minded and over-generalized. It also speaks nothing of Martin's efforts to help out the OS/2 community at large and not your over-inflated sense of what's good and what's not good for the OS/2 community.
I agree with you hausmaus. I have been using Desktop Wizard (combines most of his programs) by Gary for the last 10 years and his WPS programming skills is an art that has been lost in time. One click zip/unzip and drag&drop files on a zipped files !!! Also, I have never had a problem with it and other WPS enhancers (maybe can be add to latest eCS !!!).
Here is a review: http://www.os2notes.com/os2dwizard.html
I have the serial numbers for it available on request.
Quote from: miturbide on 2012.05.11, 23:12:16
miturbide
Didn't find anything regarding Desktop Wizard (source code) ???
http://www.os2notes.com/os2dwizard.html
It was his final program combining most of his programs (I have a serial number).
If you can find the source code (Desktop Wizard) I'll start a $250 bounty to have update it and add it to eCS !!! Opps, I just re-read the early post and saw Desktop Wizard in there !Greggory
Hi Greggory
I had checked all the .dat files and haven't found any "Desktop Wizard" source code.
I will try again with the author to see if he has something else around.
Hi Greggory.
Gary replied to me. Sorry, it is not good news about Desktop Wizard source code.
"Sorry for the late answer to your letter. It has been extremely busy around here lately and I am way behind on all email.
I have looked just about every place I can think of and I just can't find any other media with OS/2 stuff on it. It looks like Desktop Wizard is lost, possibly forever. Since I wrote Desktop Wizard I have moved twice and it probably got lost somewhere along with other discs as well.
If I ever find it, which does NOT seem likely, I will be sure and let you know. The source code for ZipZap, Stats, and CmdHere were originally ALL part of Desktop Wizard and the code for them were taken directly from it.
Anyhow, sorry about Desktop Wizard, but it looks like it is lost for good."
Sorry.