Mini image format containing only protection-related data?

[col_oddball_bugmenot]

Is there or can there be an image format that could contain only the data required for bypassing the copy protection, and not the rest of the CD (installation files, etc.)?

What I'm thinking is that the protection generally only checks a certain part of the disc, right? So why not discard everything else, and end up with a much smaller image file?

Or even just zero out all of the unnecesarry stuff (most of the files on the disc), and then compress that to a new image format. That way the image can be mounted, and treated as the original but any files not used by the copy protection will just be blank. Since the files aren't ever read, it would appear to be the same disc.

I'm sure that running the game with either the original disc or a full image should be enough to figure out what's needed, right?

[NetSoerfer]

*stifles a laugh* great idea! But you might want to do a search in the forums, maybe searching for a term like "mini image" or something