Ringed Disc Dumping Guide

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Revision as of 17:34, 6 March 2023

Ringed Discs have physical separators[1], preventing the disc to be properly dumped by typical means. This guide is for data only discs, data + audio tracks needs a different procedure to get the right .cue file. Note: this guide is not for Dreamcast / GD-Roms which also have rings, see GD-Rom Dumping Guide.

CD Dumping

Hardware Required

• Compatible Plextor
• Liteon/HP SOHD-167T

Tools Required

• DIC/MPF
• CloneCD (Free Trial)
• ECCEDC.exe (Optional)
• CDArchive
• CDMage

Dumping

Step 1: First attempt to dump the ring protected disc in DIC/MPF using a compatible Plextor drive. This is to acquire information about the disc and generate logs, the actual dump does not matter and is not complete. If the dump does complete without errors, it is not a ring protected disc. During the dump, DIC may/should freeze once it reaches the sector that the ring protection starts. At this point, pause DIC by clicking into the console window (possible to do this in Windows 10 and Windows 11, probably doesn't work in Linux), and eject the disc from the drive. Afterwards, continue the DIC dump by pressing Enter in the console window. This allows DIC to skip the ring entirely as there is no disc in the drive. Once you believe DIC has passed all of that ring's protected sectors, pause DIC again, insert the disc, and wait for Windows to detect the disc. Once the disc has been detected by Windows it is safe to continue the DIC dump. Repeat for multiple rings. Once DIC is finished you will have generated logs for the disc containing information such as the offset and PVD. You might want to also try to dump the disc with DIC without using the /c2 parameter for an easier task.

Step 2: Move the disc over to the SOHD-167T drive, this will be used for the rest of the guide. Open CloneCD, select "Read to Image file," select the SOHD-167T drive at the top, select the "Protected PC Game" profile, and click Next. Save the IMAGE file wherever you'd like in an easy to access spot for future Command Prompt access. IMPORTANT: Put a checkmark where it asks to create a Cue-Sheet (.CUE) file, this is required for future steps. Allow CloneCD to finish dumping, this may take a while and may appear like it is making no progress, but let it continue. CloneCD will skip the ring protected sectors and generate a (nearly) complete dump. The drive will eject the disc on completion, remember to insert it back when the dump is complete.

Step 3: Open the CloneCD log after (or before) it finishes by clicking "Tool > Log ..." in the CloneCD window. The log will show what sectors were skipped but it may not be exact. To see what exact sectors are missing we will want to run the CloneCD IMAGE.IMG file through ECCEDC.exe. Open a command prompt window (Win + R, type CMD, Enter). Navigate to where you placed ECCEDC.exe and run the command: "ECCEDC.exe checkex <location of IMAGE.cue file>". ECCEDC will generate a log in that location (IMAGE.cue_EdcEcc_Track_1.txt), navigate to it and open it (it's recommend to use Notepad++ because the file is large and makes Notepad lag). Press CTRL + F to open the Find window and search for the first line that says "2336 bytes have been already replaced at 0x55". This is where the ring protection starts. Make a note somewhere of the sector this starts and ends in (It may only be one sector). Repeat for all rings. When you are done you should have a range that the ring protection covers (Ex. 215808-220474).

Step 4: Open an elevated Command Prompt window. In the Windows search bar, type "CMD", right click "Command Prompt" and click "Open as Administrator". Navigate in CMD to where you placed CDArchive and run the following command after filling in the required information:

Template:

cdarchive.exe --mode=ext --extrdrive=<DriveLetter> --extrstart=0 --extrend=<LASTSectorOfRingProtection> --extroverread=0 --extrretries=50 --extrskip=1000 --extrdirection=b --extrdiscmode="cd" --extrsectdir="<SectorExtractionDirectory>" --extrrefcue="<LocationOfIMAGE.cue>"

Example:

cdarchive.exe --mode=ext --extrdrive=E --extrstart=0 --extrend=220474 --extroverread=0 --extrretries=50 --extrskip=1000 --extrdirection=b --extrdiscmode="cd" --extrsectdir="D:\CDArchive\Extracted" --extrrefcue="D:\Dumps\IMAGE.cue"

CDArchive will attempt to read sectors at the end of the ring protection. If CDArchive gets stuck on one sector after multiple attempts, you may move on to the start of the protection and attempt to read those sectors. Repeat for all rings. This process will likely take several hours. If your drive feels like it is overheating, give it a break and let it cool down. Hot drives don't work as well for reading sectors.

Step 5: While still in the command prompt and navigated to where CDArchive is, run the following command filling in the required information:

Template:

cdarchive.exe --mode=mer --merdiscmode=cd --mersrcdir="<SectorExtractionDirectory>" --meroutcue="<LocationOfIMAGE.cue>"

Example:

cdarchive.exe --mode=mer --merdiscmode=cd --mersrcdir="D:\CDArchive\Extracted" --meroutcue="D:\Dumps\IMAGE.cue"

This will merge all the newly required sectors and complete the dump.

Step 6: Before sending the dump informations to Redump, check the image file with the CDMage tool. If there's some errors, repair them. The yellow sectors only needs to be repaired, red sectors are empty and missing, because of the ring protection.

CDArchive Variables

--mode -> Could be "ext" (extract) or "mer" (merge), to extract or merge sectors;
--extrdrive -> Drive Letter for SOHD-167T
--extrstart -> Start of sector range you want CDArchive to scan
--extrend -> End of sector range you want CDArchive to scan
--extroverread -> Read X amount of sectors before/after the range (Helpful for resetting drive to a "valid" state)
--extrretries -> Number of times CDArchive will attempt to read a sector before moving on
--extrskip -> Number of unread sectors until stopping, count resets upon successful sector read.
--extrdirection -> Can be "f" (Forwards) or "b" (Backwards) for which direction you want CDArchive to scan. Backwards is recommended.
--extrdiscmode -> Media type (CD or DVD)
--extrsectdir -> Folder where you will place the extracted sectors (remember to create this folder before running this application)
--extrrefcue -> is for the CloneCD cue file related to the previous image file

DVD Dumping

Hardware Required

• Any DVD Drive (Unconfirmed)

CDArchive is used for dumping Ring Protected DVDs. As it's explained here in the command line you'll have to use "--extrdiscmode=dvd" and a special cue file with this information:

FILE "FILE.ISO" BINARY 
 TRACK 01 MODE3/2048
   INDEX 01 00:00:00 

See the CD Dumping section for command examples and templates.