As far as I can remember, SafeDisc, at least the first version (Here's how to identify them or you could use a program like A-Ray Scanner or a list on the Internet) was protected by adding bad sectors, so it sucks to backup scratched SafeDisc CDs, because you don't know if the damaged data your CD ripper reports are SafeDisc errors or real errors. I simply use ImgBurn to rip SafeDisc protected CDs and just turn off reporting and rereading bad sectors.

The CD's I'm attempting to backup aren't that badly scratched, though my Starsiege set is a near total loss as is my Tribes 1 CD... Shouldn't of been lazy to put away my CD's properly back when I was a stupid kid.

I'll try this out though, thank you. It'll be great to finally have this stuff on backup rather than go out and buy good condition CD's for everything I own.

Would be better if GOG released some of these titles: Redline, Starsiege (though since it's a 2 disc game where the tutorial is on the 1st CD and campaign on 2nd, would be rather complicated, also the engine absolutely hates Vista\7), Battlezone 1&2, Heavy Gear, etc

Alcohol 52% FE is free.
Settings for Safedisk (any version): "skip reading errors"=on, "fast skip error blocks"=off, "read sub-channel data from current disc"=on if the disk is mixed-mode CD.

Oh I totally forgot about 52%, thanks for explaining the options too.

Isn't there still a version of Daemon Tools that can do this? I thought this was pretty much the point to Daemon Tools in the first place. DT, you see, can not only image the disc, but can mount the images it creates in such a way as to fool the copy protection check. Even if other programs can image the disc by skipping the bad sectors, that doesn't mean that the resulting image will actually be useable. And making a 1:1 physical copy of the disc is pretty much impossible with a standard burner, of course.

Isn't Starsiege officially freeware now?

Jorpho wrote:

Isn't Starsiege officially freeware now?

Only Starsiege Tribes and Tribes 2 have been freeware since July 2004 (to promote Tribes Vengeance). Starsiege, the HERC simulation, is not affected and may still be owned by Activivendlizzard.

Jorpho wrote:

Isn't there still a version of Daemon Tools that can do this? I thought this was pretty much the point to Daemon Tools in the first place. DT, you see, can not only image the disc, but can mount the images it creates in such a way as to fool the copy protection check. Even if other programs can image the disc by skipping the bad sectors, that doesn't mean that the resulting image will actually be useable. And making a 1:1 physical copy of the disc is pretty much impossible with a standard burner, of course.

Isn't Starsiege officially freeware now?

DaemonTools complains about unrecoverable read errors and the check boxes for "Emulation" are grayed out now... don't know which version of DToolsLite can actually work this.

And I wish Starsiege was freeware since the game used to have a really active community (somewhat). I can't even run it on Vista\7 and the patch to make it work doesn't exist anymore even on archive.org which extremely disappoints me.

Be this kind o' natters prohibited by DMCA? Jus' cautious..

DracoNihil wrote:

DaemonTools complains about unrecoverable read errors and the check boxes for "Emulation" are grayed out now... don't know which version of DToolsLite can actually work this.

I think the primary difference between "Lite" and the version you have to pay for is that one supports the emulation and the other does not – which means that you'll need to find a version that predates the split. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Be this kind o' natters prohibited by DMCA? Jus' cautious..

I don't think so since this is a ancient version of SafeDisc (like the very first versions of it), I never came across problems backing up images of other games and some games of today, besides I think we have a right as the consumer to protect our purchases... Why the hell should we pay $30+ for a CD we already own if we can't just back up the data ourselves and prevent tons of grief? Plus I've had cases ever since going on XP x64 edition that the copy protection REFUSES to believe my legit copy is a legit copy so I have to cirucmvent it just to play the game that I payed $30 for back when it came out... (The culprit? Old SecuROM.......)

It would be DMCA to break the DRM on something like say, the newer versions of StarForce, SecurROM or Steam or Origin... But for something this old and problematic on newer systems it's exempt because it's deprecated technology and actually hinders legitimate access.

Jorpho wrote:

I think the primary difference between "Lite" and the version you have to pay for is that one supports the emulation and the other does not – which means that you'll need to find a version that predates the split. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

Well that's the strangest thing, I remember a version of Lite very vaguely had the emulation options tickable but I don't think they actually worked... anyways I'm using alcohol 52% now on a XP 32-bit system though it's probably going to take forever...

I used to backup CD images to preserve copy protection on my games but it got really really old keeping up with all the different methods....and when a new OS comes out and the copy protection breaks because the copy protection drivers never got updated (or took forever to get updated) I just said screw it and downloaded the cracks. I do the same thing for my steam games so there really isn't any difference.

Alcohol 52% takes forever to backup safedisc 1 protected stuff but it works perfectly, now if only the rest of my CD's weren't scratched to hell.

All drives take forever to recover from C2 error's on discs, unless you have certain Plextor drives (which have fast error skip capability).

It's not required to copy the data in the bad sectors (its not used), only that they have errors in them (most tools fill the sectors with 0x55). ECC/EDC errors are enough to make the protection work, C2 errors are not necessary. Safedisc uses both errors on the real CD however. Laserlok and SmartE use the same techniques.

There are MANY myths about what is needed and what isn't for a copy to work.

SecuROM, Tages and Starforce use a physical signature of how the sectors are written on the disc, and check this with seek routines. While not burnable, you can emulate it with alcohol (DPM measurement). These and other protections also use ATIP info, which pressed CD's tend not to have, or it's data that the protection can check. This information is not alterable on writable media. SecuROM also uses an "error" twords the end of the disc, which is a single sector written in a different mode than the rest of the disc. If the disc is Mode 1, then it is a Mode 2 sector and vice versa.

A-Ray Scanner is very old... I suggest Protection ID and/or Burnout.

RoyBatty wrote:

All drives take forever to recover from C2 error's on discs, unless you have certain Plextor drives (which have fast error skip capability).

That's incorrect.

Taking from what I remember about FES (Fast Error Skip) years ago, and which drives were good at it, I would conclude that almost ALL modern drives should perform FES very fast except perhaps drives with Panasonic chipsets (LG).

Modern Samsung drives should use a Toshiba-based chipset since Samsung bought Toshiba's ODD sector (Hence the "TS" prefix for all their drives). Back in the day, Toshiba DVD-ROM drives from models SD-M12xx and up were very fast doing FES.

Lite-ON drives which use Mediatek chipsets also excel in FES. Asus drives are either Lite-ON based or sometimes Samsung re-badges so YMMV.

I should also point out that there are many SD universal "crackers" out there which should have no problem modifying SD executables, especially SD 1.x, which should bypass the checks.

Another problem you might encounter is ATIP checking... Pressed discs have unique ATIPs which SD sometimes checks for. If you don't use an SD executable cracker but decide to make a 1:1 copy, you will either need a utility to block ATIP checking, or you will need to play the disc in a drive which can't read the ATIP (non-writing drives, like a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM).

DracoNihil wrote:

And I wish Starsiege was freeware since the game used to have a really active community (somewhat). I can't even run it on Vista\7 and the patch to make it work doesn't exist anymore even on archive.org which extremely disappoints me.

http://sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/NewSier … .html#METALTECH It has not been thoroughly tested, but it allows Starsiege to run on my Win7 x64.

I don't know if there is anyone still interested in this, but I just updated the above installer with _inmm. The installer can rip and compress Starsiege's CD-Audio tracks so you can play the game without the CD and still have the CD-Audio music during game play.

I used the Vista patch I found to install Starsiege and get it running on my 7 rig. Worked for a month and then I installed some Windows updates. Stopped working completely and I just kind of gave up on it 🤣