Backing up some CD-Roms with SafeDisc
 

Hi, I have a few Computer-based-training cd-roms that i want to make back up copies of. My reasons for the backups are :- 1. because the CDs are fairly valuable and i would prefer to keep there usage down to a minimum to reduce wear and possible damage. 2. because i like to take the CD's with me to work to study on my break times etc and i don't want to risk damaging the originals! and finally 3. because i have lost the receipts! and god forbid i kill or loose the originals well thats a few hundred quid down the drain!!

Anyway, I come across a website with loads of utilities for cracking protections, burning, ripping ISOs etc and i have tried them all but none have worked and tbh im not 100% sure what im doing!!

ClonyXXL tells me that the CD-roms have SafeDisc v2 on them. I have tried making 1:1 iso copies using CloneCD 5.3 with CloneCDProfiler but i have no joy. The copied cd will play and the program will install, but then upon trying to run the program i get the error telling me to insert the correct CD. -The program is dependant on the CD being in the drive to run.

I do wonder if ClonyXXL is wrong about the protection type as ProtectionIDv6.4.0 and SafeDiscAnalyser say Safedisk v4.81.000.

Could someone possibly give me a how-to, or guidance on what i need to do to successfully create a working copy? If there is no possible way to do it then could i mount an iso of the cd to a fake CD drive and run it from there? At least this way i can keep from having to use my original CDs.

Thanks for your help
Ryan

Clonyxxl is very very very out of date
most backups can be made using alcohol 120% or daemon tools pro..both have trials so you can test them before buying, their sites also have forums etc for support

www.alcohol-soft.com
www.daemon-tools.cc

Also reading the faq's on sites is probably a good idea

clonecd etc are very out of date..best advice : uninstall

Ok thanks for the help there TippeX. I have downloaded Alcohol 120% trial and am currently ripping one of the CDs for copy. I was not sure what read/write speed to use so i just selected quite a slow speed as i hear it reduces the chances of errors?

Anyhow, i am looking at it now whilst its ripping and the information box is flooded with ' Read data examination error at: <number>' Obv with <number> being replaced with a value...

I had similar errors when ripping with Nero and CloneCD. Will this cause me problems with the backup copy? Settings wise, i literally used the Wizard and selected 'Safedisc 1/2/3/4' from the data type drop down menu.

Do i let it run? or abort?

Read errors are normal for safedisc..typically its in the range of 16 -> 10000
the key to it working is finding the right profile and speed which can differ depending on your cd/dvd/bd drive so you have to do a bit of experimenting.. So let it run..also nero is useless for backing up protected disks.. Also, dont use iso format for protected discs, it will usually fail

Post exact Safedisc Version (scan it with latest Pid), maybe i have loader for it.

I can do better than that :-P but its sunny, its hot and its probably best Ryanrs learns how to backup :-)

Yo! Well, that last attempt failed also unfortunately :( I also tried mounting the image file to a fake cd-drive but the program sussed that too! Im on wasted CD-R no 7 now :/ lol.

What Pid do you recommend cowsheep? ill get downloadin!! p.s. how does this 'loader' work?

Glad its how where you are TippeX, Its pissing down here in SE UK !! :(

Edit:... im guessing PID means 'Protection ID scanner' ? to which i found and downloaded. I run a file scan on the cd and heres the report :-

ProtectionID Protection Report (txt format)

19:33:12 | *DISC* D:\ [VFR01_03] | Disc Protection: SafeDisc Signature v 4 (or higher)
19:33:33 | D:\SetUp.exe | Setup Factory Module v6.0.1.4 | Visual Patch Installer
19:33:41 | D:\system\VFR-Menu.exe | Safedisc v4.81.000

Can you scan the folder you installed the software (what is it btw?) too and post the results? ... dont try burning, just try mounting in dt/alcohol.. If it detects the virtual drive there are programs to cloak it to avoid detection

Scanning the installed folder also revels SafeDisc v4.81. The discs are part of a aeroplane pilot training course, they are computer based tuition for a series of exams that have to be taken to get a ppl license. There noting special tbh, just a macromedia flash style tutorial program on each one, but the sodding things are ridiculously expensive! and therefore i don't like them leaving the house! hence why i want copies!

Mounting it to the alcohol virtual drive gives me the same error as trying to run the program with a copied cd in the drive..

'Cannot locate the CD-Rom
Please eject and re-insert the CD-ROM, select OK and restart the application'

The virtual drive will run tho when the 'Correct' cd is in my cd-rom drive, so i guess it searches for all drives for the authentic copy.

Also...

I have just found that a few discs have SD v3 on them. These copy but when loading the installed program it appears to crash at the opening logo screen (where it detects the cd) -no error message tho.

13:13:17 | D:\DrvMgt.dll | Safedisc driver managment dll (drvmgt.dll)
13:13:25 | D:\SetUp.exe | Setup Factory Module v6.0.1.4 | Visual Patch Installer
13:13:26 | D:\system\PQ-Menu.exe | Safedisc v3.15.010

Crash usually means image is bad (wrong key calculated leading to a crash typically in ~df394b.tmp) or sometimes a silent exit.. Try remaking image mds/mdf format (safedisc profile too maybe) with a low dpm speed...its very much trial and error.. Also (at the risk of sounding silly) you need to make the image from the original disks too.. If it all fails then myself or cowsheep will see what else can be done (we would need the exe and dll files from the install folder put into a rar/zip file and uploaded somewhere) ..best of luck

Well, i dont know if this makes any difference but basically (with the cdrom with SD 3.15) i did the copy cd wizard, safedisc 2/3/4 in the datatype, had 'ignore media type' and 'RMPS -Recordable Media physical signature emulation' checked in the emulation section. I selected a very very slow read and write speed and i do always copy from the original disc. The copied cd will work to install the program, just like the SD v4.81 cd-rom copies do, but when trying to launch the program, it crashes at the splash screen. It does not crash tho if i insert the original cd-rom. The SD v4.81 discs dont crash but do flash up the 'remove and re-Insert cd-rom' error window.

Any ideas for this? I really do guess this company don't want anybody copying there stuff!!

I could send you the files to examine, there is only 1 dll file on the disc and that being 'DrvMgt.dll' which i believe is to do with SD? There is no Dll's in the install folder, just the launch program. All the program files are DXR adobe flash protected files. this is the same for all the CD-roms SD 3 and 4. So would you want just copies of the program EXE? or do you need the DrvMgt.dll off the CDs too?

What is your preferred method of file postage?

Thanks for all the help btw!

Its best to do the drvmgt.dll from each cd as the sd versions change, maybe make folders like disc1, disc2 etc and put the respective files in each fokder then rar/zip them all...
And then upload to rapidshare, megaupload etc..whatever is easiest for you

Besides the dlls, we also need the protected exes like VFR-Menu.exe or PQ-Menu.exe.

Yep ok, ill do as TippeX says and make some separate folders of each CD each containing the DLL and EXE. I notice the CDs also have a few files with names like '00000000.016' to which i understand are to do with SD? Would you require these too?

The *.016 and *.256 files aren't needed, they are just renamed bmp files which safedisc (depending on settings) uses for the splash screen :-)

Heres the files that you have requested, there is 7 CDs in there, there was a few more but i dont want to take the pi** too much! :D I have included the SD version in the name of each folder. Im guessing that if you suss how to patch one, the rest will be practically the same?

Heres a link to the Rar. -If there is a password on the archive, its ' spain '.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ICR6LBDK

Thanks.

Heres the link to the files you requested, there is 7 CDs in different folders, i have added the SD version of each one to the folder names.I i guess that if you can suss how to patch one, then the rest will all be the same?

I did post this earlier but it seems to have been deleted off the forum? perhaps links are not allowed to be posted??

well here it is again, but not as a link ;D password if needed is ' spain '

megaupload DOT com/?d=ICR6LBDK

I downloaded the files and will take a look at it later.

Hi,

here is a tool for unpacking the SD 4.60 ones, orginal disc or working clone must be mounted.
Will look at 4.81 ones later.

Is that the arteam one? the sd3 ones i think ryanrs got the cracked exes for... Didn't he msg you?

Yes, this is the Arteam unwrapper for the Sd 4.60 and yes, he msged me, but about the files with Sd 3.

Thanks Cowsheep, ill give that a try.

Ok, i gave that program a go and its still not working! Heres what i did. I copied to MDS image using Alcohol 120% with 'Safedisc 2/3/4' datatype profile and mounted it to Virtual H drive. I then ran Unsafedisc which then prompts me to select an executable to load. I select the program EXE from the H drive (the same one that you have a copy of) to which a DOS window opens displaying the following :

SafeDisc 4.6 unwrapper Beta Internal Release

Process started...
Setting Breakpoint on DLL entry...
DLL reached...
Setting Breakpoint for IAT rebuilding...

Then i get a windows error window displaying " Fatal error! , CreateProcess Error!" which is immediately followed up with the usual 'Please insert the correct CD-Rom ...bla bla'

Any ideas whats going wrong!! :/

Safedisc detecteds that the discs are not valid...

That files are Sd clean, but dont work because there is some overlay stuff inside SD crypted area that gets lost.

(For Sd 4.81 this tool dont work as it fails to set a BP and app starts through.)

Thats why i asked if it was the arteam tool....its a piece of crap and done very badly..said this years ago too..0day theyre geed at.. Safedisc (1 tool..and sloppy reversing) and securom ("total ownage".. more like total bollocks) they should have left to those who have an intricate knowledge of iso protections..hell most of the tuts are olly + imprec (or variations)...
Just my 2 cents tho

Yes, its not a very good tool i know... but iam not aware of a better one available in public. That what RLD released is only a loader. At least it unpacks Sd 4.60, but the reason for the files not working is the macromedia flash projector overlay thingy.
I still didnt figure out how to unpack SD with Olly, a SYSENTER is always the end.

Well, i gave them files a go and it crashes at the macromedia flash loader, i guess this is what your talking about above?

Any ideas on a fix? im guessing these are proving quite challenging! Btw, i did notice how the file size of the two exe's in the zip above are tiny in size compared to the originals! is all the missing filesize all crypt data that you have removed?!

Safediscs dll files take about 2MB, so a size loss of 2MB is normal if SD was removed. But the size difference is bigger, so there must be some other data that was lost...

Here is the generic loader from RLD, that should work with all version.
Read the .txt file for instructions.

(Any ideas on the password for the source archive? :))

Is the appended data stripped out? if so then i'm sure its easily put back..then flash should pick it up... As for loaders, i found a problem with some exes..the loader faked the cdcheck and code got to the oep but some ccc's (what r!sc, me and yates called them.. Others call it sdapi) could silenty call the cdcheck again (which the loader won't handle again) and...boom.. and loaders are weak nehows..and the rld one is stolen... Which explains how they know little on newer sd versions :)

Overlay is inside SD protected area, the only by default visible overlay contains the sd dlls.
What are the games the loader does not work with?
Of course, a sd free file would be better.

You can post exact Safedisc Version