VirtualDrive

[jimbo62]

I am new to everything associated with CD images and emulators. I have been doing some experimenting recently with DiscDump, ******** and Daemon. And just today I tried VirtualDrive. VirtualDrive seems to produce an image of one of my games the fastest with DiscDump just slightly slower. But both DiscDump and ******** produce an image of 729,157 kB while VirtualDrive produces an image of 635,255 kB. All three images load into Daemon and play the game properly. The copy protection for the game is SafeDisc.

I would appreciate any insight into what the difference is between these three programs and I would like to know if anyone has any experience with VirtualDrive.

Thanks, jimbo

[Copytrooper]

Looks like difference between RAW and cooked image (2352bps vs 2048bps) - the image probably works, 'cause SafeDisc doesn't check the defect sectors anymore.

[LocutusofBorg]

it's also possible that you set option for "compressed images".

Afaik, VirtualDrive is able to compress images (in the native VirtualDrive image typ, called .vcd)

A compression is planned for Daemon Tools, but currently not implemented

[jimbo62]

I don't think it was compressed. VirtualDrive has an option to convert the vcd file to an iso file. It produced an iso file with the exact bytes as the original vcd file. Did it do any more than change the file extension?

I really don't know anything about this stuff, all new to me. I was just trying to learn a little and find a program that would create an image of a CD on a hard drive and have a CD drive emulator to "play" the CD image.

Thanks, jimbo

it's also possible that you set option for "compressed images".

Afaik, VirtualDrive is able to compress images (in the native VirtualDrive image typ, called .vcd)

A compression is planned for Daemon Tools, but currently not implemented

[Andareed]

Copytrooper is right. Check ratio: 2352 / 2048 = 729,157 / 635,255

[LocutusofBorg]

Copytrooper is right. Check ratio: 2352 / 2048 = 729,157 / 635,255

damn, next time I should turn on my brain before posting such shit :mrgreen:

[jimbo62]

So, what does "cooked" mean? Does Virtual Drive use some proprietary non standard means of producing an image? Also, I have seen reference to 2352 bps for raw mode and 2448 bps as a variation, but I have never seen 2048 mentioned. And one more small point, the ratios are close but not exact.

Another question. If I have a "perfect" image produced by DiscDump, Alcohol, etc. will any and all "burner" programs be able to produce a working CD copy or does the "burner" program still have to have sophisticated copy protection features?

Thanks, jimbo

[Copytrooper]

cooked means only the data (cd data sector is usually 2048bit);
RAW sector contains additional EDC & ECC (2352bit);

2448bit is RAW + 96 subchannel bytes.
If the image format is supported by the cd recording software, the resulting cd-r should be the same.

[jimbo62]

Well, just an update on my project. I made an image of my game with Alcohol 120 (Demo) and burned a CD with CDburn from Windows Resource Kit. Everything looked OK, but when I tried to play the game I got the "please insert CD" message. So everything was not OK in Mudville. Since Alcohol 120 is supposed to produce perfect 1:1 copies of SafeDisc v2 protected CDs, I assumed that CDburn was not producing a correct copy. But, I didn't want to buy Alcohol120 because it is expensive and I only make occasional CD copies. So I used ******** (Demo) to burn a CD from an image that I had made earlier with ********. Everything works perfectly! So, I have purchased ********. Reasonable cost and full function. Only two virtual drives, but there is always Daemon.

Thanks, jimbo

[LocutusofBorg]

for only occassional cd-copy's, ******** is maybe enough.