People have said that they have had success backing up this game, I have just tried 4 times with 24102B & once with 32123S without luck..

2 times failed protection and the other 2 times would even see the CD, "not a valid Win32 Application."

Why posting this here, would BlindWrite Suite have better luck then CloneCD versions 4202 and 3341??

Very difficult game to copy with a Lite-on writer. PaRaDoX has done so with CloneCD but very few others have had any luck.

You might try with alcohol using standard securom new (not securom 4.8x) settings both reading and writing at low speed (say 8x).

If you want to try blindwrite, read with subs using nibble mode and write using dao pw.

Good luck. You'll probably need it.

Just tried with Blindwrite Suite 427, surprize surprize, worked first go. Read 4x with Subs and Nibble Mode then Wrote DAO PW at 4x also.

I did do a .bwa but Blindwrite never needed or used it...

<edit> Oops, even with the updated Addon everything is still working fine... <edit>

So the plot thickens ....

The backup worked to start the game playing, after some time playing the protection still kicks in. IG2 has the new protection by JoWooD that renders the game unplayable by increasing the Costs (Industry, Transport etc...) by doing another 'check' for the CD while playing. The game ticked over to the 1st of June, I has $11.1million in cash and went to build another Industry in another town, wondered why the building was in red (can't be built) and looked at my cash, -$3.4million in the matter of seconds. By the end of June my cash had fallen to -$205million...

Ok, its either:

A) Blindwrite Suite can not create a perfect backup of IG2, including a BWA file....

B) The Lite-On LTR-24102B can't do a perfect backup....

C) The protection looks for a CDRW drive on the IDE chain/channel/cable....


Hope this makes sence, I havn't got my original right now, it's at brothers place, I went out and brought a CD-Rom (Samsung SC-152C) drive so i'm not playing from CDRW drive. Looks like this protection has gotten me beaten....

"ThEÑiGhTcRaWlÊr" wrote:
>
[...]
>

>Ok, its either:
>
>A) Blindwrite Suite can not create a perfect backup of IG2,
>including a BWA file....
>
>B) The Lite-On LTR-24102B can't do a perfect backup....
>
>C) The protection looks for a CDRW drive on the IDE
>chain/channel/cable....

A) not so, try again or use another .bwa file from somewhere else
B) correct, in my case anyway
C) yes; this was the problem with the NWN 1.21 patch

Hi matey..


A) That might be hard, in theory a BWA file shouldn't really be needed...

B) Hmmm..

C) Might try disconnecting the drive and see what happens...


Something else I thought of:

D) Blacklisting of programs, if CloneCD Tray is running the game starts but nothing will work correctly, buttons won't display...

"ThEÑiGhTcRaWlÊr" wrote:
>
[...]
>

A) That might be hard, in theory a BWA file shouldn't really be
>needed...
>
>Something else I thought of:

>D) Blacklisting of programs, if CloneCD Tray is running the game
>starts but nothing will work correctly, buttons won't display...

A) true, but someone wanted a .bwa for WC3, so I gave them one and it's the only way he got a working backup. What I should have said was don't use the Litey as a reader OR try a .bwa

CloneCD has been updated since IG2 was released. Funny thing though, I only just saw it at Electronic Boutique the other day. Has it been re-released?

>renders the game unplayable by increasing the Costs

...yeah, the ability of the developer to do 'stuff' is triggered by a guard module success at finding a backup - it's on the SecuROM website. Some people may remember that an RA2 mission explodes about 5 secs into the game if the backup or emulation is no good

Not that I know of, it has been available here (Newcastle) for over 2 months now. The 1980 - 2020 AddOn has only just hit the shelves, might be the one you seen...

Yeah, I remember that with RA2, something about the Registry not being correct triggered the explosion...


Not sure if the Samsung can read Subs, looks like my DVD Drive is on the shopping list a little earlier then I first thought...

Haven't heard that samsung dvds were great (or even good) subs readers. However, before you rush out and buy a new dvd, remember that supernew securom doesn't use subs as part of the protection so it doesn't matter all that much if it's a lousy subs reader and you might be buying it just to back-up one particular game.

Of course, if you're looking for a new one anyway, well, you may as well get a good one.

Sorry philamber, I should have been more informative, the Samsung drive I have is just a CD-ROM not DVD. That's why I was looking into buying a DVD drive later this month, but looks like I might get one sooner now, Lite-On 166 I can get for $80 so looks like it's the one i'll get later this week...


Interesting about the Samsung, my brother also has a backup of IG2 now that was done with my 24102B, running from his Lite-On CDROM (can't remember model) the protection hasn't kicked in yet and his upto the year 1918. The protection kicked in for me at 1915...

Definitely getting new drive and the Lite-On DVD sounds good...

any update to this issue. i can get it to load past the startup but the internal game will do strange things like can't get any production out of buildings or land. suddenly get charged 14mil in debt. and other things. looking over at there support forum they say its part of the antitheft and to play with the origional cd in the drive at all times.

so far no emulation works, no cd's don't work, nothing seems to work so far. image was read with a nec 7700a, not sure how good it is for subs but i think with the latest 1.2 patch its secure rom was updated to the newest. i also notice people having issues with the new expansion for it.

just looking for an update to backup up my game.

The protection is very strange, sometimes it works without any problems but then the protection might kick in around 2nd of June 1915. I have played more with the backup and the protection never kicked in for 3 games but then this afternoon my brother played on my PC and the protection kicked in...


To my knowledge all the no cd patches for version 1.2 don't work, but the new no cd patch for the expansion from immersion (ims-ig2afix.rar) does work according to a friend...

so now i have to wait till the exp comes to the usa some time in first qtr.

You could go back to version 1.0 if you had no problems, the protection was not introduced until version 1.1, thats where I had problems also. I stayed at 1.0 until I got the expansion now its version 2.0 ...

in another thread i posted a walkthrough for you !
do it and you should have no problems every securom NEW game i have backed up 1/1 useing my method

I bought IG II yesterday from EB at Woden for AUD$50 ($20 cashback has expired though )

I'll run it through CloneCD, Blindwrite etc and see what happens. I'm caught up in a truck-load of Alcohol testing at the moment.

when u look at if it works or not its a bit rough cuz getting into the game is easy, its that internal game dynamics change. any where from auto cost goes from 14k or what ever low number then jumps into the millions. also on certian maps or items u get 0.0 production on sites and also .1 item per month production.

Don't complain about that FutureProof, its still $90 here in Newcastle...


The protection has different times when it kicks in, sometimes in 1915, 1923, 1925 I have found so far. But then sometimes it doesn't kick in at all and the game runs fine...