Nascar Racing 2003 Play/backup CD question

[fastfred]

Just received my copy of Nascar Racing 2003 Season and would like to make a backup to use in the cd player vice having to insert and remove the original everytime I want to race. Did that with my NR2002 cd and it became almost unreadable with use ( I race a lot ). So the question is how do I make a LEGAL backup or play disk of this game? I have a LiteOn 52x24x52 burner, Nero Burning Rom. I just downloaded Alchol120, blindwrite, and daemontools3.29 but have NO idea how to use them. My operating system is Win 98. I think the game uses SecureRom but not sure. ClonyXXl reports fast read errors at the end of the cd, but I have the securerom dlls in the windows directory so I'm pretty sure its secureRom (only know this from reading GameCopyWorld's board). Any help appreciated.

[Copytrooper]

Very easy: Use Alcohol, click on SecuROM new v4.x profile (i.e. with DPM);
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create an image, write the image to cd-r with RMPS-option checked, enable RMPS-emulation of either Alcohol or Daemon Tools, and play the game. If the game doesnґt start right away, try to eject and re-load the cd.

[fastfred]

Copytrooper -> Thanks for the quick reply...and I did read the walk thru so I think I can handle that. One more thing though...my burner is on a different unit than I race with, is that going to be a problem if I make the backup on one machine, then take the backup cd to another machine. I keep my race machine separate and I dont do email or net activitiy on it at all. Too many setups and years of racing data and car files to allow getting messed up by a virus. Do I have to have Alchol120 or daemontools on both machines??? Any files I need to transfer over?? I have read something about mds files on the board but still confused about them.

[NetSoerfer]

The mds files contain (not only) the physical structure of a SecuROM v4.8x-disc which cannot be applied to a CDR. However with Alcohol's RMPS feature this information stored in the mds file is being burnt to the disc as a kind of separate file, so Alcohol can emulate the physical structure. Of course this won't work without RMPS emulation activated because then the CD won't appear to have a structure, but instead have another file on it.
However, as Alcohol and Daemon-Tools base on the same code by VeNoM, you can also use Daemon-Tools to emulate RMPS, that should work as well. So either DTools or Alc will have to be installed on your racing machine.

The above-said is a very easy explanation, not really accurate, but should give you a general idea of how RMPS works. If you want to read more, have a look here if you haven't already.


HTH

sG

P.S.: Some people reported that the game will check for Alcohol or Daemon-Tools to be installed so if it does not work and you're 100% sure you've done everything right, it might be because of this "blacklist" check (where Alc and DT are blacklisted, i.e. marked as "bad software"). Then unfortunately you'll have to wait until a new version of DT or Alc arrives to make it work again.

[fastfred]

Sergi --> Thanks for the replay. I went ahead and made the copy on my "admin" computer (for lack of a better name to call it);
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just follwed the steps in the walk thru, and it works like a champ. No problems creating it or running it on the "admin unit" So, if I understand what u just said correctly, to use it on the "racing unit" I must install alchol or daemon tools on the "racing unit" and mount the mds file on the "racing unit". Are the mds file (and the other smaller file i forgot the extension) the heart of the copy; ie can i write the mds file and the other file to a CD-R, take it to my racing unit and dump them into the appropiate folder, load alchol or daemontools then mount the mds file or do i mount the copy I made using alchol? Sorry to be so confused...maybe if I install alchol or daemontools on my "racing unit" I'll have a better feel for what goes on. What would be your recommendation of which one to use? Alchol or Daemontools considering that I don't have a burner on the "racing unit"? :?:

[Andareed]

Well, if you don't have a burner in that computer, daemon-tools would best suit you.

[NetSoerfer]

You have two options, you already named both.

#1. You can either burn the two files (.mds and .mdf, the latter is the larger btw) to a CDR if they fit (they'll be approximately 70-100MB bigger than the original disc). Then you can copy them to the HDD of the other computer and mount them from there (or mount them directly off the CDR). You will need no emulation options activated, however they should not cause any problems either.

#2. You can also create a CD from the image with Alcohol using the RMPS feature. This will do the following: the content of the .mdf file (the data) will be burnt to the CDR, then, additionally, the content of the .mds file (the original disc's structure) will also be burnt to the disc AS DATA. Now, if you put the CD into a CD-drive, it obviously won't work because it can be easily recognized as invalid - no structure, additional data (the .mds content). This is where the RMPS emulation comes in handy - it will simulate a disc with the right structure lying in the drive instead of your RMPS CD. For this, you will need to enable RMPS emulation either in Alcohol or in Daemon-Tools. As Andareed said, if you don't have a burner on the racing machine, you won't need a copying program - Daemon-Tools would be the better choice.

Hope this cleared your confusion...

sG

[fastfred]

Sergei -> Many thanks for the help, I think I have a handle on it now!!

[NetSoerfer]

glad I could help...

[Generic]

Sergei:
Have you been following the thread in the Support Forum "Nascar Racing 2003" ??
If so, do you have any suggestions.
Thanks

[NetSoerfer]

Yeah, I've been following it, but unfortunately I have nothing helpful to add, sorry