Just recovered some of my tracks from 1992-1994 from a floppy disk!!!

[dukeofurl]

EDIT #2:  FINAL VERSION OF TRACK ARCHIVE WITH 30+ ADDITIONAL RECOVERED TRACKS ADDED TO THIS POST 3/2/24

EDIT: LATEST VERSION OF TRACK ARCHIVE WITH ADDITIONAL TRACKS IS ADDED TO THIS POST  12/20/23



I found a floppy disk in a box in my parent's basement today in the year 2023 with the pencil label "Stunts tracks, SAVE!" on it and the date, 1994.  I was able to check it out with a USB floppy drive I bought awhile ago, and surprisingly I could read this almost 30 year old disk and see that it had ~240 files on it. The files of course were Stunts tracks and their highscore records, (so maybe around 120 individual tracks).

I tried copying them to my HDD and was able to get a portion of them, maybe about 70% of what was on the disk.  I think its about 80 individual tracks. 

So without further ado, here are mine and my brother's (and some of my dad's) Stunts tracks that we made between August 1992 (probably immediately after we got the game) and January 1994 when the disk was made.

Its personally nostalgic for me to find these long lost tracks, but maybe they will be interesting to others to see what current players of the game were doing when the game was still relatively new and there were no enhancement or edit tools or easily findable internet community. As it turns out, it seems the very first track that was saved was by my dad (judging from the file name daddy1), and it is an edit of default.trk.  That is an example of how one might first learn the track editor by loading up an existing track and messing with it, rather than making one completely new by scratch.  As the track list goes on, there are plenty of tracks that range between simple to sadistic, short, to long and complicated.  Curvy dirt rally tracks, and extreme stunt tracks and weird experimental stuff too, such as long straightaways of slaloms just because my brother wanted to make me a "tough" track.

By the way, in 1992-1994, my brother and I would have been in elementary school and my dad in his late 30s. So that's the age range of us, the creators of these tracks at the time!  Please enjoy my personal archive. 

[alanrotoi]

Oooh nice finding!! Thanks for sharing!!

[Daniel3D]

It may be possible to recover the rest as well. HBCD has a bunch of tools you can try, and doesn't need installation.

And, internet as we know it, started in the middle of your timeframe. So unless your father was already a BBS enthusiast, you probably didn't have access to internet for well past 1994..

On April 30, 1993, something called the World Wide Web launched into the public domain. The web made it simple for anyone to navigate the internet.

[dukeofurl]

It may be possible to recover the rest as well. HBCD has a bunch of tools you can try, and doesn't need installation.

And, internet as we know it, started in the middle of your timeframe. So unless your father was already a BBS enthusiast, you probably didn't have access to internet for well past 1994..

On April 30, 1993, something called the World Wide Web launched into the public domain. The web made it simple for anyone to navigate the internet.

What is HBCD? I'd be happy to try some tools to try and get more data off the disk.  I also have old HDDs from our old PCs from the early and mid 90s, which almost certainly have more Stunts tracks saved on them, but I don't seem to be able to read these old HDDs via a USB adapter I bought, but they do spin up and seem to mechanically run smoothly. Might this tool help with recovering data from HDDs too?

[Daniel3D]

What is HBCD? I'd be happy to try some tools to try and get more data off the disk.

Download here

[dukeofurl]

Thanks, this looks like a giant collection of tools covering a variety of topics. Is there one in particular that might help me recover data from the floppy disk?

[dukeofurl]

Wow I tried some software for getting corrupt files off floppies and it was working well with some other floppies I had that weren't working yesterday, so I tried this one as well. The software says the whole disk is bad and recovers no files, I am also unable to read it in regular windows explorer like I was yesterday...  Good thing I grabbed what I could yesterday, this disk might be permanently messed up now.

[Daniel3D]

Wow I tried some software for getting corrupt files off floppies and it was working well with some other floppies I had that weren't working yesterday, so I tried this one as well. The software says the whole disk is bad and recovers no files, I am also unable to read it in regular windows explorer like I was yesterday...  Good thing I grabbed what I could yesterday, this disk might be permanently messed up now.

Try restoring the partition, or if you can boot in dos, try recovery tool from the dos menu. Windows is not always a good judge in these things. Also, not all tools work the same way, some are successful when others are not, depending on the issue.

[dukeofurl]

Hm, how do I go about restoring the partition?  Wish I could boot into dos with an old pc, but my working computer these days is a modern Windows 10 machine.

For what its worth, tried the tracks diskette again a few times in Explorer where it worked before, and in some tools, but didn't get anything showing up or downloadable tonight.

[Daniel3D]

HBCD has a lot of tools for restoration and recovery.

[dukeofurl]

I have had no luck accessing the floppy disk files... But I recovered more tracks from my old hdds from later years. I think it's around 140 tracks in total. Tracks were saved during these years:  1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2014.  Will upload the new archive when I'm next at my PC. 

Are there other Stunts websites that might want my tracks as part of an archive?

[Daniel3D]

I have had no luck accessing the floppy disk files... But I recovered more tracks from my old hdds from later years. I think it's around 140 tracks in total. Tracks were saved during these years:  1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2014.  Will upload the new archive when I'm next at my PC. 

Are there other Stunts websites that might want my tracks as part of an archive?

I am building a database.. over 4000 at the moment.
But there are several sites with collections. But I don't know if they are actively maintained..

[dukeofurl]

New version of track archive is attached to the original post. Everyone may feel free to share these files with anyone anywhere, and/or upload them to any website.  I think some highscore and even some old replay files that we thought interesting enough to save at the time (stuff like launching straight into air, power gear adventures, unusual crashes or other unusual car behavior) are in the archive as well.

[Duplode]

That's lovely, thanks for unearthing them and sharing with us!

I couldn't resist a drive at ROB92-94/ROB44.TRK (RPL attached), which is a nice flowing OWOOT track. As a bonus, you even can do multiple laps!

even some old replay files that we thought interesting enough to save at the time (stuff like launching straight into air, power gear adventures, unusual crashes or other unusual car behavior) are in the archive as well.

1999-2000/TIMING!.RPL is art 

[Cas]

Hey!  It's really nice to see some tracks from back then. I uploaded some of my old tracks from the same period at some point. I don't know where. If I can't find them, I could upload some again here too