IBM PC: SafeDisc protection

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Revision as of 07:22, 13 September 2013

This guide will help you understand, identify and properly dump SafeDisc protected games.

Work In Progress

Overview

SafeDisc uses corrupted sectors in the begining of a disc, usually in range 500 - 10500 (average figure).

To be sure that the all corrupted sectors are dumped properly, it's important that a disc is at least dumped twice on different drives (and that the checksum matches on both drives).

If your disc also has audio sectors, it's important that you cut off the SafeDisc image to the size of the data track, and dump the audio tracks the normal way.

After dumping a proper SafeDisc image, you'll also have to include the following info:

• Amount of SafeDisc sectors. You can check this by opening the image in CDmage and scanning for corruption. The SafeDisc sectors will be within the range of 807 - 11920 (if you get them outside of this range, let us know) and will have a Medium Severity.
• SafeDisc version. Download Protection ID and open one of the game executables on the CD with it to get the SafeDisc version.

Detection

For this you need BurnOut or ProtectionID.

NOTE: ProtectionID is not compatible with some versions of Vista and Windows 7.

Dumping

Method 1: DDump

You can use DDump for dumping SafeDisc CD's

Usage   : DDUMP.EXE [HA:TA:LUN] [OUTFILE] [OPTIONS]
Example : DDUMP.EXE 1:0:0 DUMP

It works in Command Prompt. Launch the tool to see a list of the drives that were found and their address

You don't need to fill in any [OPTIONS]. It's important that the drive detects all the corrupted sectors properly. The sector numbers will end up in a .log file in the same folder. The next time you dump the disc with the same filename, the tool will detect the .log file and automatically skip all the sectors that are listed in the file.

To be sure that the all corrupted sectors are dumped properly, it's important that a disc is at least dumped twice on different drives (and that the checksum matches on both drives).

If your disc also has audio sectors, it's important that you cut off the SafeDisc image to the size of the data track, and dump the audio tracks the normal way (using EAC or PerfectRip).

After dumping a proper SafeDisc image, you'll also have to include the following info:

- Amount of SafeDisc sectors. You can check this by opening the image in CDmage and scanning for corruption. The SafeDisc sectors will be within the range of 807 - 10977 (if you get them outside of this range, let us know) and will have a Medium Severity. - SafeDisc version. Download Protection ID and open one of the game executables on the CD with it to get the SafeDisc version.

Notes on DDump:

The package that we linked already contains an ASPI driver. If you have any problems with this package, let us know.

Method 2: CloneCD

In Windows Vista / 7 DDump will not work so we are going to use CloneCD instead.Download the following CloneCD profiles and use the one called redump.org_(pc_protected).

Method 3: CD Manipulator

You can also use CD Manipulator for dumping SafeDisc CD's (image). This tool was introduced recently (8/30/2013), and has already proven very effective against SafeDisc and LaserLok protections.

Examples

• Star Wars - Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es) (Disc 1)