Hej all
my old sony can't handle safedisc 2.9++.
i was told that i should by an Asus or Acer.
Now i am told that thay can't even handle The Sims 2 with safedisc 3.XX.
What can be done about it??
thank in advance

Hi Frede, The newer Safedisc protections are indeed very tough to deal with. Even drives that encodes EFM (more) correctly sometimes fail. E.g. my Liteon that has passed the SD 2.9 sheep test has a lot of trouble making working backups of SD 3.20.22. (Doom 3), but my Plex Premium that can’t pass the SD 2.9 test, deals with it much better. So it’s not only a question of correct EFM encoding.


It also has to be said, that the Premium needs amplification of weak sectors to make (almost) perfect backups. You can see the Liteon results here and the Premium results here or read the whole thread here. The Premium can also make 1:1 backups of securom New/5xx with Blindwrite.

This is another thread that might be interesting for you to read.


Since you’ve posted this in the CloneCD forum it has to be said, that many drives are able to make working backups with CloneCD, but they will most likely need some kind of emulation to work.

My Asus 5224a can make lovely copies of SD 3,2. The trick is to read at 4x.

I'm not familar with Sony drives, however I once did a comparison between the Asus 5224a and a Liteon 52246s. You can read about it here.
In my experience the Liteon was faster and had better results. Also, since then, the Asus drive has completely failed to work at all, while my Liteon is still churning out backups like a champ. I used it with Discjuggler to make an emulation free backup of Doom 3. However, this backup will not work (at all) with CloneCd installed.