Hi, a friend of mine bought a music CD (Evanescence - Fallen) and she was unable to get any more than 3 songs to work on her hifi. In fact the 1st song = the 3rd song, so there are effectively only 2 playable songs.

I tried helping her out using Feurio/Exact Audio Copy but both programs only saw 3 songs as well. This was on a LiteOn 48x CD-ROM drive and a LiteOn SOHW-812S DVD-RW drive.

I also tried using Nero to make a hard disk image, it turns out that the image size is small (230MB), with most of the size being taken up by a 100MB data track and the rest by the 3 ~40MB audio tracks. The data track seems to be for some Flash intro you get when you try to play the CD on a computer without using special programs to try to rip tracks from the CD. This small size is consistent with 3 songs, if I got say 500MB then I would've expected more.

Lastly, I tried playing it on my portable CD player but it also only saw 3 tracks.

The CD has a faint visible ring in the middle in the data section, with the words Sony Music in the centre. I can send you a scanned picture of the CD if you like, I don't know if the ring will contrast well in the scan, though.

I was thinking that maybe the remaining songs are after that visible ring, but all the 4 CD players tested so far "stop looking" after it hits the ring.

I am puzzled because my friend is pretty sure she bought the full album (in fact the manual has all the songs there listed).

What is going on? Is this just copy protection on steriods - can't even play the music CD on specialised music CD players - let alone a computer??

First download AnyDVD. Then run EAC and "Retrive the Native TOC" THen try to copy it

Hi, thanks nooby_god. I tried that, after installing AnyDVD, EAC now detects the data track on the CD (which Feurio originally detected). However, that is all else it detects. It is still 3 tracks + a data track. There are supposed to be 12 (including one band version repeat).

I looked at the receipt and it looks like she paid the full price for it. I checked the store's website and there aren't any single albums being sold anyway. I think I'll be taking it back to the store and complaining that it doesn't play fully on 5 players, 2 of which are completely unconnected to a computer.

If any of you have any suggestions for me to try before Monday, I'll be happy to do so. I'm also curious if any other people here had an Evanescence CD that played fine. Did your CD have a visible ring about 1/2 a radius into the data section, about 1mm wide?

1) Try all possible TOC operations in EAC.
2) It may be possible to request a non-protected copy of the CD from the manufacturer. Beware that the sound quality may be slightly inferior to the copy-protected version because they will probably "watermark" the unprotected version.

It sounds to me that you have a 3 track cd to me and thats it. There is no known protection that hides tracks on the TOC in the manner you are experincing.

The ring is simply from the gap between the audio and data session, to hide that you need to master the disc using a mirror and not a cutter.

I agree with hqs.
I think they packaged the wrong 3-song CD in the full CD packaging.
I don't recall seeing a "ring" on mine.
I can't say for sure because a friend of mine borrowed it yesterday.
I did make a back-up of it and it plays fine.