I don't know the answer , but I will watch with interest, as I have several hundred game disks and another few hundred magazine cover disks that I want to back up to my NAS.

Interessting infos in this thread. For DPM Infos (securom) the alcohol .mdf Format seems to be needed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/datacurator/comments … g_cddvd_images/

Alcohol's MDF format is what I tend to use. It gives good results with Safedisc, SecuRom and most StarForce, but it doesn't have profiles for rare things like Tagès. Some of the backups may require no-CD cracks to run.

OK, thx already for the firet replies.
The more i ready about plextor the more it seems that this drives were the best with its good quality (also expensive) and one of the best error correction systems which is needed for CDs/DVDs in bad condition. Also it seems they were good for copy protected discs but i dont know why exacly.

But still i dont know much about the drive technologie and in which way it matters for image creation.

For badly scratched disks certain model Plextors were very good at able to read them but that does not apply to game disks with certain protections because scratches alone can mess that part up.
I use UtraISO for most all CD's and DVD's except game disks to make images (.ISO's). Easy and fast. Alcohol120 and CloneCD/AnyDVD are the best game disk imagers imho.
As for drives: the best back in late 1990's and early-mid 2000's were the LiteOn CDRW or DVDRW drives for doing game disks with protections, with the proper software.
Some Plextors were ok for game imaging but the majority on the imaging forums mostly used LiteOns due to nearly all models having DOA RAW capability (that is the most important part).
Many newer sata can work well too as long as they support RAW and DOA. Have a LG WH12LS30 that works just fine under XP with Clone and Alcohol....
There are work arounds for a few of the protections that no drive+software can fix when imaging.....

Thx, that's helpfull. Will have a Look in RAW/DOA.
In my case i would need a drive which works for CDs and DVDs good. Audio CDs I'dont have a lot. Mainly Data CD/DVD. And ibonly want to make Backups to my HDD. Burning them Back to a CD/DVD seems not relevant for me (in the hope Win 98 supports .MDF img mounting).

Or ist it maybe better to use a special drive for CDs and another one for DVDs?

Horun wrote on 2024-12-12, 03:01:

For badly scratched disks certain model Plextors were very good at able to read them but that does not apply to game disks with […]
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For badly scratched disks certain model Plextors were very good at able to read them but that does not apply to game disks with certain protections because scratches alone can mess that part up.
I use UtraISO for most all CD's and DVD's except game disks to make images (.ISO's). Easy and fast. Alcohol120 and CloneCD/AnyDVD are the best game disk imagers imho.
As for drives: the best back in late 1990's and early-mid 2000's were the LiteOn CDRW or DVDRW drives for doing game disks with protections, with the proper software.
Some Plextors were ok for game imaging but the majority on the imaging forums mostly used LiteOns due to nearly all models having DOA RAW capability (that is the most important part).
Many newer sata can work well too as long as they support RAW and DOA. Have a LG WH12LS30 that works just fine under XP with Clone and Alcohol....
There are work arounds for a few of the protections that no drive+software can fix when imaging.....

Recovering scratched and "disc rotten" disks is a bit of an art form, IMHO. Keeping it very short, some of the older Plextors, current LGs (Blu Ray ones especially, IMHO), current Pioneer based designs (like the Asus SBW-06D2X-U ), older DVS IDE drive mechanisms from Norcent/Apex/etc video DVD players (DSL-710A, for example), all manner of Lite-On drives (EBAU108, for example). Generally, writers and full-size drives (not laptop or slimline drives) are better at marginal discs and are faster at reading, BUT two of the specific models I mentioned are slimline USB drives and are quite good, IMHO.

I say it's an "art form", but it's more like "trial and error" because

a) No two "bad" discs are alike (a drive that works for one might choke on another and vice versa)

b) A drive that handles scratched disks well won't necessarily be helpful with "disc rot") and vice versa

c) A "bad" disc might appear perfectly readable in one drive and be utterly unreadable in another

A little update. I compared now 3x Plextor 716A (2005 and 2006), LG GSA-4082B (2004) and a HL (LG) GSA-H60N (2007)

For DPM it seems every drive works the same good. But for damaged CDs the Plextor seems to be the worst. I Just dont get it why. I have 3 of the 716A and all 3 have more ready Errors then the both LG. The. H60N seems to be the best. It gets on a very damaged disk only 19 read error while the 716A has over 50.

I also updated the firmware of the 716A to latest version 1.11. Doesnt help to get as less ready errors as the LGs

So maybe the 716A isn't that good in reading damaged disks? Or does other drives maybe ignore them somehow and would even create a worse img?
Or is something wrong setup via plextools. In generell plextor seems to have a good quality and even special tools for their drives but somehow the error correction seems currently not the best for me. I need a drive which has a very good error correction cause some of my CDs and DVDs has deep scratches up to the data layer 🙁

Or are newer drives maybe even a better choise cause of a maybe more advanced error correction? What about the newer chips inside of them which cant copy CD /DVD protections? Is it true?

In one point the 716A is really good and that is the speed. In damaged areas it reduces it and in good areas it speeds up very nicely.

P.s.
The newer german alcohol 120% v7 from franzis seems to be a cleand version which cant help in cases of copy protections for your backups. I.d.k but I hink the older one v2.x by original alcohol-soft link should be the better choise.