Does anyone know how to enable the Hide CD-R media option in CloneCD, any help would be greatly appreciated. Drop me the link for a tool at BryanCorbiere@Hotmail.com , thanks.

just change the region settings to English Canadian and it should work

What is hide CD-r Media Used for ???? What is is good for?

it is used if you want to play a game with ATIP on your cdr recorder

why is it disabled for usa and japan and what is atip?

New CloneCD options explained...
Posted by G@M3FR3@K on Tuesday 27 November 2001

Since some time now CloneCD has a few new features which a lot of people still don't understand. Here's an explanation of these features called:

Amplify Weak Sectors (AWS), and
Hide CD-R Media.

Last update: 05-dec-'01
Amplify Weak Sectors (AWS)
The first new option is called 'Amplify Weak Sectors' which we'll call AWS for short. This new feature isn't hard to understand once you know what it's intended for. The AWS function has to do with the latest and popular copy-protection called SafeDisc 2. To understand what SafeDisc 2 is and does I suggest you read this article. Once you've read the article you'll know that SafeDisc 2 relies on 'weak (error) sectors' and that some writers have problems writing these sectors. In short there are three SafeDisc 2 writer groups:


Writers that don't have a problem at all with SafeDisc 2 like the Plextor PX-W2410A, the Lite-on 24102B and the Philips writers.
Writers that will make a back-up that works in the recorder only like the Plextor PX-W1210A and (most of) the Ricoh writers.
And last the writers that simply can't make a working back-up like the Sony writers and the AOpen writers.
If you want to know to which group your writer belongs to you can take a look at the CloneCD Hardware Requirements (check if 'Correct EFM Encoding' is supported). Unfortunately these lists don't mention if your writer will make a back-up that works in the recorder so here's a list that does.

For the last two groups (writers that can make a back-up that works in the recorder only and writers that won't make a working back-up at all) the AWS function is intended. Not to get real technical here the AWS function simply 'helps' these writers make a better (read: working) back-up.

How to use it?

The option 'Amplify Weak Sectors' will appear when you want to write a created image. Simply enable the option and start writing. But note that the AWS option will sometimes be greyed out... This is because the AWS option is disabled for the USA and Japan due to legal issues. There are workarounds for this though (check www.CDRSoft.cc for CloneAMP).

Please note that for reading a SafeDisc 2 protected game you only need to enable 'Fast Error Skip' in CloneCD. The reading of SubChannel Data isn't needed for SafeDisc 2 (yet?)...

Will it work?

Well yes and no. Unfortunately not all writers work with the AWS function. For a list of reported working writers check www.leech.at/sd2brenner. If your writer doesn't work you can try one of the tools mentioned in the SafeDisc 2 article.

Other notes

Thanks goes to InSOMniA for submitting this extra info...

Back-ups made with the AWS option are still 1:1 copys... and a future version of SafeDisc 2 will not be able to see a difference between a copy made with the AWS option or a copy made with a 'EFM' compatible writer...

Hide CD-R Media

Now we'll take a look at the 'Hide CD-R Media' option. Again this option isn't hard to understand because it's rather self-explaining. Hide CD-R Media will 'hide' the disc from the application (game) and has to do with the so-called ATIP protection. Read this small explanation to understand what this protection does.

When you've read the small article you'll know that ATIP simply checks if the game is played from a CD-R by reading the ATIP (pre-groove). When the protection does indeed find ATIP info on the disc the game will conclude the disc is a CD-R and is thus not the original disc and won't run. A simple solution for this is to play the game from a normal CD-ROM which can't read the ATIP info (only a CD-Writer can) but what if you only have a CD-Writer in your PC? Well here's where the 'Hide CD-R Media' option comes in.

'Hide CD-R Media' simply blocks the ATIP reading so the game will play from a CD-Writer!

Please note that the ATIP protection is usually an additional protection next to a 'normal' protection. E.g. FIFA 2002 is SafeDisc 2 protected but it also uses the ATIP protection.

How to use it?

When installing CloneCD your PC will be restarted and afterwards a small tray-icon will appear. Right-mouseclick on the icon to enable the 'Hide CD-R Media' option. There are some more options:


Start CloneCD : this will start CloneCD (duh...)
Hide CD-R Media : hides the media
Help... : start the CloneCD help file
Elaborate Bytes Website : go to the CloneCD website
Autostart : start the tray-icon on Windows start-up?
Exit : closes the tray-icon
If you disabled the 'Autostart' function but you do want to start the tray-icon, start 'CloneCDTray.exe' located in the CloneCD folder on your harddisk.

Will it work?

Due to legal restrictions the 'Hide CD-R Media' option is disabled for the USA and Japan (for workarounds check www.CDRSoft.cc for CloneAMP). Also, the 'Hide CD-R Media' option doesn't work on Windows NT.

Is there any way of removing the ATIP from a CD-R completely, so that if you use a CD-R on another PC that does not have CloneCD installed, you will not need the "hide CD-R media" function at all.

No you cannot remove ATIP info since this area is read-only. You can only try to block the reading of it by playing from a standard CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, using Hide CDR Media or a crack of some sort.

is buggy! HIDE CDR don't works very well.
Racer and Who want to be milionaire (ITALIAN vers) don't work with HIDE CDR enabled!!!!
(All product are SECUROM NEW protected!)

Anyone has the same problem?

(OS is Win98SE)

is this for copied games or orginal ones?? Does it do anything to the cd or just no read sections of it while playing???

It's used with CD-R(W)s which have physical disc information written onto the pre-groove area. Pressed discs do not have an ATIP as they are not written to.

How it works? By intercepting the 'read ATIP' (or whatever you wish to call it) function that CD-RWs have on their chipset.

The latest revision of SD2 has defeated "AWS" so there's no surprise that "Hide CD-R Media can be defeated. My research led me to find two well documented 'read ATIP' calls & one not so well known. It would not be hard to code a request that tunnelled through a PlayBack, Insectors or "Hide..." function.

The defeat of these options is very similar to the blacklisting that occurs with Daemon's Tools (now probably moot with V3.0.0.0)