Ok, I have had no problems backing up any sd version in the past. I have made copies of MOHAA, C&C Renegade, and GTA3 with clonecd and betablocker 1.01. Check this out. I just bought GTA3, and I immediately backed it up so i wouldn't lose the discs to scratches and such, plus it gives me a rush . Anyway, I managed to make 4 copies of it on different media (I've been testing different media for quality and SD 2.51 compatibility, no illegal stuff going on here). When I went to try my 5th copy using the same images, something went awry. The install cd works fine, because it has no protection, contrary to what people think. Anyway, when i went to test the play cd, i get the hanging at the rockstar logo load screen error. I double checked my previous copies, and they still worked fine. Keep in mind i used betablocker to patch the play cd image, and that I used the EXACT SAME settings every time. Since the reading was obviously fine because i made 4 working copies, I checked to see if it was the media. I used reliable fujifilm 700mb and verbatim 700mb cd-r's, ones that i had made previous successful backups on. Here's where i got scared and began to weep: THE BACKUPS DIDN'T work. I was always using the same settings, so i tried writing with AWS on and off (yeah i know, don't use betablocker and AWS on the same image, but i was fiddling around ok?) to no avail. Here's my hunch: the repetitive burning of the same image caused some sort of degredation to the integrity or content of the image. Has anyone heard tell of anything like this happening before? I just read another image and successfully "betablocked" the sd2.51 play disc image, and the burn process is at 53% right now. I'll let you know how it turns out. But man, there is some weird mojo going on here. I actually think i had the same problem with a max payne image i was storing on a backup drive. After i re-read the image, i was able to back the game up again. I'll let you know how it turns out.


P.S. - I didn't give any burner stats or settings because the backup process ran fine. I will let you know I used the settings reccomended by clony 2.0.0.6 and they worked the first 4 times, and i used betablocker, not AWS.

P.P.S. - On that note, I've been wondering. My NEC NR-7800A burner only partially does EFM encoding correctly (1 sheep), and betablocker 1.01 has always worked for sd 2.51. I've used AWS for safedisc 2, but never 2.51 or above. Will AWS work for my burner on SD2.51 and above? I know i should just test it, but My budget is tight, and every coaster i make takes away a little piece of my soul with it....

Thanks for your time and contributions!!!!

Okay, here's the scoop. I just finished the new burn, same problem of hanging at the rockstar logo. I'm reading again with new settings and I'm going to do a betablocker/AWS burn, but I'm still really confused.

sorry but the first and second disc of gta3 contain sd v2.51.021, disc 1 contains the .exe file wich IS safedisc encoded, and disc 2 contains the rest of the protection to run the game(eg.xxxxx01.tmp)

"My budget is tight, and every coaster i make takes away a little piece of my soul with it...."

Why you don't then buy a cd-rw disc?

i am not doing the same as u(i don't use betabloacker 'cos i got 2 SD2.51 capable burners), but i have had funny xperiences with sd 2.51??

When backing up MOHAA, i made about 3 working backups, then when i made more, some worked, and some didn't?

i still dont know what the problem is but im not letting it bug me

Hey, there's definately something fishy going on now. I still used the same settings i was using before, except now I've only managed to mak successfuly copies of my ORIGINAL backup. I use the same settings, but i can't seem to make to make copies of the original disc, only other copies that I have already made. I still use betablocker 1.01, and the copies of the copy are fine, but My copies of the orignial aren't working. Man, does anyone have any idea what's going on here?

go ahead and post ur settings, dont be shy.......for some reason, it always helps to know how ur doing what ur doing.

Ok, so here are the settings:

Read

Read retries: 0
Error Correction: Software
Speed: 4x
Audio and data extraction: Medium (Doesn't matter, only applies to subs)
Regenerate Data Sectors: On
Fast Error Skip: Auto

Write

Speed: 4x
AWS: OFF
Always close last session: On
Don't repair subs: OFF

(Patched with Betablocker 1.01)

try a new image but with out beta blocker then have aws set on

I'm having a weird issue with GTA3 also... I've made perfect working copies of MOHAA, without any problems. Clony tells me it's also SD 2.51, so I thought it would be just as easy to copy GTA3. My mistake!

My burner is a LG 8320B, which I saw on several lists as totally EFM compatible, and able to burn SD 2.51. Whichever settings I use (Clony's, some I've been seeing in the posts, my own), I can never make a working copy of the second disk, everytime I start the game it tells me to insert the correct cd.

I've tried also betablocker, but to no avail... same thing happens.

And there's also a funny detail... whatever speed setting I use in CloneCD 4, it always burns and reads at 8x... except for the reading of the protected sectors, of course.

Why the hell is GTA3 so "uncopiable" when MOHAA doesn't even break a sweat?

buy a lite-on and your life becomes less stressfull

pete_pt, i have the same burner. i thought i was making coasters of the same game (GTA2) until i tried the "coasters" on some different cdrives. worked fine!!!!! of course i destroyed the 5 working copies Futureprof posted a good tip to mount them in Daemon tools to test first, then youll know.

Add me to the list of people with strange problems with MOHAA.

My problem is a little different. I can only making working backups on CD-RW media. CD-Rs will not work. I've tried 5 different brands. I use CloneCD 4 (4.0.06 I think) with the default Game profile. I select max speed for Read/Write but the read operation takes 12.5 minutes. Since my Cyberdrive 36X does not support correct writing of regular EFM patterns I had to use AWS. Later Daemon Tools confirmed the image.

I've made about a dozen and a half coasters but CD-RWs are fine and always work in two writers and one CD-ROM. I don't need to use "Hide CDR Media". Is this because the media is CD-RW?

Yes. That's exactly what I am saying. I uninstalled MOHAA and reinstalled it from the backup copy (CD-RW). It runs perfectly. I don't even load CloneCD Tray so "Hide CDR" is definitely off.

This brings up another question. Elsewhere at CDfreaks forums I found a link for an SD2.51 EFM test writing ISO. If I understand correctly one burns the image and can then read back the image then this demonstrates that one's burner can correctly write EFM encoding. My burner failed this test yet I was able to make a backup copy of my CIV3 (Safedisk 2) disc. I was able to do this before I learned of the AWS and the region trick (I'm in the USA).

Does Safedisk 2 use that regular bit EFM pattern thing? I had the impression that if my drive can't write the patterns correctly then even Safedisk 2 shouldn't work (unless AWS is used).

Please help me understand my results.

You got the burner after this one :CW-058D 32x12x48? The 36x isn't listed on Olli's site yet. Why RWs work and Rs don't? I have no idea


btw, I've seen your Nick elsewhere...where was that?

Yup, It's the CW068D, the one after 32X and before the CW078D (40X I think and available in Europe). I think my burner has more than than just a firmware update to the CW058D. My burner has the same firmware version number (or one of the 58's firmware updates), 110D. The CW068D has six Z-CLV zones instead of five, and seems to have a very conservative speed curve. It only averages 27X for a 700MB burn which I think the same as the 32X drive yet my drive does reach 36X.

There are other strange things about this burner. When I try Nero CD Speed's CD Quality check it reports, "This drive seems incapable of returning error information...Continue anyway?". If I do continue I always get like 40% errors (not 40 errors, 40 percent) on every disc, even originals, yet all my game backups work, all my music CD-R/CD-RWs are free of audible errors, the Advanced DAE check says, 99.9% (on generic media). Somewhere I got the error message, "this drive cannot report C2 errors" or something like that. (I can't remember the application in which I got this message). Still, everything seems to work (except SD2.51 backups on CD-Rs). Very funky, this drive.

I'm about to try EAC to see how it does with "perfect" audio copies (backups, of course).

civ3 isnt 2.51, so this does not apply

Ckin2001, you misunderstand my meaning. I was not trying to say that because I could make a CIV3 copy that I should not be having problems. I'm not that naive.

What I was trying to say, is that I already learned that my writer cannot correctly write EFM regular bit patterns at all, and that I thought Safedisc 2 also uses this technique (although not as effectively as 2.51). I didn't understand the results I was getting.

I should have mentioned that the Safedisk2 ISO test also failed.

I can understand how I could get a working copy (but not 1:1) if I used AWS. What I can't understand is how I got a working copy without it using it on a drive that seems to have problems.

Am I wrong about this? Doesn't Safedisk 2 use these EFM tricks?

Maybe I used the ISO images incorrectly. I just wrote them to a CDRW and tried to use CloneCD to make a copy. CloneCD was unable to make an image.

test by attempting to burn the iso straightaway, and then extract it, i believe. searching on it will give u a definite answer, though. from what you posted before about the 2.51 test, that just means your drive couldnt reproduce the EFM patterns perfectly. safedisc 2 also uses EFM regular bit patterns, as you know .

i suggest you look in your hardware profiles, and see what exactly your drive is reported as. that may shed some light on what hardware you REALLY have ....unless it says cyberdrive

Hardware in CloneCD is listed as Cyberdrive with all the capabilities, RAW-DAO, simulation=yes, buffer underrun=yes, etc, if that is what you mean.I can't remember what profile I used when writing the above ISOs so I started over again and modified a copy of the Data Profile, turning off AWS. Same result with the 2.51 EFM ISO I can't read it back. To my surprise I can read back the SD2 test disc. (Don't know what went wrong the first time).

I'm still not sure what to do with it. How do I compare the data? Do I convert the CloneCD to an ISO image some how? What I have done is create a disc with the ISO and read it into a CloneCD image which I then burned to a second disc and read that back to a second CloneCD image. I then did a binary comparison of the two (using the "FC /B" command) but the files are not a match. I've some tools (old) to look at the files but I don't know what to look for. Do I need to compare the CDRs directly? What tools are good for this?

I've got more research to do but so far it looks like my drive can't write EFM patterns, at least not perfectly.

I still have two questions I am trying to answer.

1. Assuming my drive can't write the patterns correctly, how did I make a working CIV3 backup without using AWS? ( I did this with the trial version of CloneCD before I knew about AWS and the region trick).

2. Why am I able to make a SD2.51.021 backup work on CD-RW media but not CD-R media? And, as a followup question, why does my CD-RW backup work on my writer without the need for "Hide CDR Media" and CloneCD Tray?

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I have some new information.

Since I have been able to use CD-RWs for my backup I decided to reuse some old 4X discs and they do work on my Cyberdrive. (I use these for regular game play). However, the 4X discs do not properly work on my Toshiba CD-ROM (old 24X model). The game starts but MOHAA stops at the title screen. It can't find the protection on the disc.

With my initial testing I used a 12X CDRW disc, which came with the drive, for Disc 1 of MOHAA and just the orginal Disc 2 to do my testing. At that time the game installed from all drives, Cyberdrive, Toshiba CDROM, and a really old HP CDRW, (4X/2X/20X) and also worked from all the drives.

My testing, right from the beginning, has been done with the same CloneCD images which I made from my MOHAA originals.

Maybe the limited write speed of the CD-RW (what, say 10-12x?) allows you to beat CivIII. Try as slow a write as you can on good CD-R media and see what happens...

Sorry, I guess I had more details in another thread in the CloneCD forum.

I've done test reads from 48X down to 1X and test writes from 36X to 1X (before I realized the minimum write speed for the Cyberdrive is 4X). I've use 5 brands of CDR media.

The one and only Civ3 backup was done with everything at max speed, Default Game Profile, trial version of CloneCD, and generic 16X CDR media which accepts 24X writes was used. Since it worked the first try I didn't need another backup copy.

Is there any chance that the trial version of CloneCD (I believe it was beta 4.0.0.1) would have AWS enabled with Region set to USA? As I mentioned I didn't know enough to change this stuff for my first few backups.

So far the score for Safedisk 2.51.021 with CloneCD

Coasters=18
Successful CDRWs = 3 (1 working set of 2 discs, and 1 test disc #1 plus 18 reuses prior to above coasters)

No success at all with Blindwrite (probably not supposed to mention that other product here).