I read a post on your forum earlier and it explained how to rip CD's to image files and software to use. However, i went to go rip the C&C (command and conquer) games and I got strange results. I managed to rip the first CD of RA2 & Yuri's Revenge, but I have so far been unable to get Tiberian Sun, the 2nd disk to RA2, or Firestorm (TibSun expantion). Help please? I'm not sure what the problem is, although the computer tends to find alot of bad sectors when writing the images, (using alcohol 120)even though the sectors couldnt be bad. I dont know if i'm just selecting hte wrong options or what.
when you open alcohol 120% and you select -image making wizard- it will go through a process of bad sector's --this is normal-- but makesure you select what type of protection this game has,(i.e. safedisc2/3 or securerom)
to scan your game to check whate type of security this game has, goto this site- http://www.aray-software.com/ download the aray scanner, it will scan your game and tell you what priotection it has
see, the thing is that i've done that, and its just that the image file takes a) forever to even finish (literally....longest thing ever) and b) theres so many bad sectors it skips that i dont believe it should. I got the first disk of RA2 and Yuri's Revenge without any bad sectors, and the other disks are clean and such...any other thoughts?
The reason it's taking so long to rip is because Tiberian sun, an EA game is protected with some version of SafeDisc2 protection (use http://www.aray-software.com to find out exactly what version number, I dont think it would be anything newer than 2.05) ... if you cant figure it out, I can probably dig my disc out someitme.
Now, regarding the SafeDisc2 protection, it's characteristic trait is that there are CRAPLOAD of read errors embedded into the disc on purpose to give image makers a hard time. To get past this problem and make a proper image, you need to have a drive capable of powering through that. In general, drives classified as 2-sheep are qualified for such ripping. With the earlier versions of SafeDisc2 to though, this isnt always a critical requirement.
The key step for you is that you need to enable "Fast Error Skip" to skip through the read errors (usually inclusters of about 10000 at a time, rarely more than 2 such clusters). The ability to fast-skip these read errors is hardware dependent
2-Sheep When talking about backing up games and such there's a lot of talkBurners capable of correctly performing EFM (eight-fourteen modulation) are designated as 2-sheep burners. Burners that can almost perform correct EFM are designated as 1-sheep burners. Last on the totem pole, 0-sheep burners cant perform EFM properly at all. For a partial list of 2-sheep burners, visit http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/45121
Dealing with SD If you need to burn a SafeDisc2/3 protected game the major consideration is the drive doing the copy; certain drives have certain characteristics that give them an easier time to perform SafeDisc2 copies than others. Such drives are described as being 2-sheep burners. Drives not quite up to the task (however capable of), are described as 1-sheep burners and heaven forbid, 0-sheep burners. So the first thing you need to do is to find out what make/model your burner is and if it is a 2-sheep burner or not. To determine your make and model of your optical drives; if you happen to have Nero Infotools installed, start it up and under the Drive tab, it will list all the relevant specifications and capabilities of your burner. The actual name of your burner is listed in the drop-down box at the top (those numbers before the name of your burner are important too!). You can get InfoTools from http://www.cd-rw.org/software/cdr_software/cdr_tools/nero_info_tool.cfm Once you have determined tha name of the burner, head on over to http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/45121 to see if that burner is listed there or not. If it is listed there, it is a 2-sheep burner; if it is not listed there it is not neccesarily a 2-sheep burner but highly unlikely. Now if you have a 2-sheep burner head on over to http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/23699 to find out how to copy a SafeDisc2 protected game. If you are running a 1-sheeper than visit http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/36444 for the appropriate guide.
