MacDraw II file recovery (resources in RESOURCE.FRK)

Question

I have old MacDraw II files. Each file has a its resource fork (I suppose) in a directory called RESOURCE.FRK. I tried FixupResourceForks to relink the files but without success. Then I could set the type and owner to open it in MacDraw again. Any idea how to relink the resource information?

Answer 1

Here are the steps of the solution that works given that you are working in Mac OS.

1. Install Mac OS 9, emulated through SheepShaver, this video tutorial shows how. You will create a Mac disk, as well as a folder used to share data with your host system.

2. On your Mac (host), run Disk Utility, and create a new FAT disk image. (New->Blank disk image->choose MS-DOS Fat). Create it (or copy it later) in the the shared folder previously specified so you can see it on the emulated mac.

3. Mount the new fat image and copy your files (with the RESOURCE.FRK folders) on it

4. Download Disk Copy from this page, unpack it, put the smi in the folder shared with SheepShaver, then on the emulated mac, copy the smi to your Mac disk (created in SheepShaver).

5. Run the Disk Copy smi, then open Disk Copy and drag drop the FAT image on it. This should mount it so you can see your problematic files.

6. Now the RESOURCE.FRK are invisible, merged with the data files, which can be open with their native application, in my case MacDraw II, which can be downloaded from abandonedware sites.

Note that Macdraw II will not display the files properly if in Million colours mode, just use the dock to change to thousand colours mode.

Answer 2

I not aware of any current software to work with resource forks.

Back in the day I did some programming with Mac OS X/carbon's C API to manipulate them, and seem to remember it being reasonably simple (if you know C). Those APIs should still be around, though deprecated.