When a SafeDisc 2 backup fails, the question is sometimes: writer or settings?

If you encounter this very question, get
http://www.gravure-news.com/weaksector/index-eng.html !

Update 18 Feb, 2003: Iluro80 has made a page in Spanish

This is similar to blackcheck's EFM game he did some time ago, but allows you to set more options and to do more detailed tests.

Decompress it, and you get the following files:

weak_sector.exe The actual test file creator
sd2old.bat Creates a test file to check if a writer gets at least one sheep
sd251.bat Creates a test file to check if a writer gets at least two sheep
bad.bat creates a file containing baaaaad patterns. Many 2-sheep writers will fail
sheep_3.bat creates a test file (over 400 MB!) which contains all weak regular patterns. A writer which passes this test deserved 3 sheep.
sheep_3_audio.bat creates a file that contains all possibly weak patterns "unscrambeled". Burn this as an audio CD (e.g. with cdrecord)

Use Nero or something similar, and create a data cd that contains the test file.
After burning, try to read it back, preferable with a Toshiba DVD-ROM: Try to copy the file from the disc to your hard disc.
You can use CD-RW for this test.

It does not make any sense to write the file to a DVD! ESM encoding is completely different from EFM encoding...

EDIT use Mode 1, not Mode 2/XA!

Thanks for the heads up alexnoe.

Cheers

My LiteOn fails for over 100 patterns

Hi alexnoe,

thank you for your great effort. I will post my results here, hope it will be interesting to you. I have only done the 3-sheep test so far, since I think, it includes all the other tests before, right? If not, I will do additional tests on request

Software used:
Nero Burning Rom 5.5.9.17 bundled
sheep3.dat created with weak_sectors.exe (Nov. 22, 2002)
WinDiff 5.1
Windows Explorer for Copying (Windows XP Pro, no SP)
md5sum.exe (to get md5 checksum)

Hardware used:
write drive: Liteon LTR 32125W@48125W, VS08
read drive: LG DRD-8120B DVD-Rom drive

CD-RW used:
ATIP: 97m 32s 12f
Disc Manufacturer: Prodisc Technology Inc.
Assumed Dye type: Cyanine (Type 2)
Media type: CD-ReWritable
Recording Speeds: min. 4X - max. 8X
nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)


Writing Speed: 10x
Nero Settings: No Multisession, DAO, finalize

sheep3.dat md5 checksum:
82cd3153367d861231643517cc7c37b5

copied sheep3.dat from read-drive:
82cd3153367d861231643517cc7c37b5

Just to be sure, windiff says: identical

cu,

Jackie

--
born to burn
My System at Nethands

just done the 3 sheep test with Liteon 40125W

file copies with Toshiba 1712 back to HDD

Just tested the sheep3.dat with my old Teac CDW-512 EB:

Windows doesn't even start the copy process, but says "invalid MS-DOS function" after trying to read for half a minute

cu,

Jackie

@Allmighty/Jackie:
That's surprising. Can the LiteOn itself read the file back? Maybe Toshiba 1712 can read badly written weak sectors much better than 1502/1612...

This weak sector thing is going to turn out much more complicated than what I expected

My VS08 cannot read the file after writing it, neither can my Toshiba 1502. I'll reflash to WS09 somewhen I try it

Hi alexnoe,

I have just retried, this time using the writer as a read-drive, and had no problems copying the file to disk, md5-checksums match, and windiff says "identical" again.

Now I am a bit curious whether this indicates that different units of the same kind of drive differ in their writing quality that much, or if other system specifications are of relevance too, for example ASPI driver versions, or something else.

Here ist what Nero InfoTool says:

WNASPI32.DLL 4.71 May 06, 2002
ASPI32.SYS 4.71 May 06, 2002
WINASPI.DLL 4.60 April 19, 2001


By the way, is there a generate report function or at least a copy to clipboard function in Nero Info Tool? This crappy piece of software made me type this information by hand, because I found no way to copy it directly from the dialog...

cu,

Jackie

Liteon copyied file to hdd sucessfully too.

may be you had make a mistake ?

i Just burned the file in nero, and copied on hdd by the explorer
strg+c strg+v

@Allmighty: It could be media dependant. I used Mitsubishi 4x-10x CD-RW media.

I tried with Nero verification and with explorer. The drive can't read it.

Verbatim 10 X CDRw 74 min used

Nero says Mitsubishi 3

I forgot:

Do not use CD-XA! You must use ISO Mode1. For Mode 2, weak sectors would look different!

ahhh i will test it with iso1

You should have mentioned that before...

No chance copying with the Liteon, after about 15%, explorer says "CRC error".

With the LG DVD-Rom, explorer says "invalid MS-DOS function" right at the beginning, after trying for about a minute.

So, it seems the Liteon does not write that data correctly - is there a drive that does, ecept the Toshiba?

cu,

Jackie

"is there a drive that does, ecept the Toshiba?"

So there is a drive that does it? (that Toshiba)
What Toshiba drive it is?

Hmmm, I thought that the Toshiba SD-R 5002 was able to write that file correctly, but it seems I was wrong, sorry.

But I am still interested which drive is able to correctly encode that file

cu,

Jackie

This very Toshiba SD-R 5002 did write the file correctly, according to someone whom I've asked to run the test (in Mode 1).
"Encoding correctly" should be defined more precisely:
A classmate can write everything correctly, but you might not be able to get sense into it, due to his wonderful hand writing.
It's similar here: The drives write this data in a way which does not allow reading it.

Did you get contradicting results as to the Toshiba SD-R 5002?

BTW I had told you earlier about not to use CD/XA if I had remembered that! My memory is sometimes baaaaad

Hi Alex,

no, I do not have any experience with the toshiba, since I do not own this drive, but I thought you wrote in a german newgroups that the Toshiba was unable to write it correctly, but maybe I got that wrong

No problem about that Mode1-thing, it was only a CD-RW

But please, keep posting which drives sucessfully can burn that sheep3.dat file, or to put it more precisely: which can burn it in a way that most other drives will be able to read it correctly

cu,

Jackie

@Jackie: Grammar:

This sentence "I had told you..." was supposed to be a conditional clause type III. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be one

I intended to say: My memory is , so I forgot to tell you to use mode 1.

About german NG: Jörg has mailed me that he used Mode 1 to burn that file (I didn't tell him to either, but he did it though ). Until someone makes contradicting experience, I label this writer a 3-sheep-writer.
When I got that report, I could not believe that this drive wrote it correctly , that was what I've written there.

tested with LG8320b@8400b and Tosh1612
-> failure (CRC-Error)

(i used the nero wizard and i made a new data-cd)

[off-topic]

I think the word you are looking for is 'crap'...

[/off-topic]

Hang on a moment.

LiteONs defeat SD 2.8

LiteONs can't beat this to get 3-sheep.

Put 2 + 2 together = [BANG! - Shoots foot]

I thought the whole Idea with weak sectors was to ensure that no-one could read or write these successfully.


So even if the file IS written correctly, the readers should all have terrible trouble actually extracting it again.


Am I wrong here or have I hit the nail on the head??

At any rate, first we need a reader which can is known to be able to read these weak sectors and then a writer that can write them, or is that the other way around, cos how can we test it unless a cd-writer ahs already written it?

I hate chicken or the egg scenarios!

It seems that my 32x 12x 48x Artec model it's a 1 sheep burner... The strange thing is it than the former model: ARTEC CDRW241040 is a 2 sheep burner.

@debro:
It depends on the writer if the written data can be read afterwards, or if it can be hardly read, or if it can't be read.
If perfectly written, then every drive can read it.

@RH:
Are you sure the former model to be 2 sheep? Or is this just elby-information which might be wrong?