Red Alert 2

Writer: HPCDri 16

i bought myself a copy of RA2 yesterday, tried to make a backup of it as well but for some reason making the image takes forever.
Last night i started making the image and when i woke up this morning it was just over 60% complete and it said that it still had 4 hours remaining. This is very strange to me.

I know it cant be my writer because it can do SafeDisc.

To read th image i use MAX SPEED, Fast Error Skip and Error Correction is set to default. Strangely also when i play the game with the original CD's the game locks up for shot periods while reading the CD.

Can anyone help me out here.

Thanks

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Last edited by Slussh; 27-03-2002 at 03:55.

Checked your Log-file? There should be errors in the first 500-10.000 sectors or so. At 60% of the read process there shouldn't be any more errors. But anyway I think HP and SafeDisc 2 is a no go... You have Red Alert 2 and not C&C Renegade? Well RA2 uses the easiest SafeDisc 2 version to copy so you might get lucky but I doubt it.

Strangely the errors reported goes way beyond that, i just need to double check it but i think it's up to 20950, i'm not sure but i'll check again.

I cant explain i because i made a flawless copy of F1 2001(SafeDisc). ClonyXXL also reports that HP's CD16ri can do SafeDisc. the only thing i can think of now is that the drive is going faulty or something. Iv'e got Aspi 4.70 installed. No the drive cant be going faulty coz i nuked my harddrive and reinstalled WinXP and the only CD reader i have is my writer. Just dont understand it.

!! SafeDisc is not the same as SafeDisc 2 !!

Red Alert 2 was the first game to use this new protection and you need a compatible writer to copy this protection. Check www.sd2.does.it for a list of reported writers. Also check your disc for sctratches and smudges since there are way too many errors. If this doesn't work lower the read speed. But keep in mind that HP and SafeDisc 2 is probably a no-go. You can try AWS or BetaBlocker. Use our search function or mainpage (www.cdfreaks.com) for more info on this. The sticky thread mentioned in my sig are a good place to start.

Sorry, i meant SafeDisc 2, F1 2001 is SafeDisc 2 protected also like i said earlier...ClonyXXL reports that the HPCDri16 does SD2.

Correct EFM Encoding is supported on the writer as well. My copy of F12001 works 100%.

ClonyXXL doesn't report that a drive can handle SafeDisc 2. It will only report what protection was found. As far as I know the HP writers cannot do SafeDisc 2. You sure F1 2001 is SafeDisc 2 protected? I doubt it actually but I'm not sure. Try using SafeDisc 2 Analyser (use Google to find the tool) to check if it has SafeDisc 2 as a protection.

F1 2001 indeed is safedisk2 ..i checked with clony ..
bye now

Hmm....I turned off the Hide CDR media feature then i tried making an image of RA2 again at MAX speed. It did the image faster this time but it encountered errors beyond 10000. At 75% the time remaining jumped up to 4 hours. I stopped the image so for 1.) I know disabling the hide cdr media feature cured the image making process because the writer would just read and stop read and stop. Then i made an image of F1 2001 which only took 4 minutes to make. I wonder why i was able to make a image at Max speed of F1 2001 while making an image of RA2 at Max speed takes almost forever and more errors encountered with that(Both these games are SafeDisc2 protected). Anyway i then brought my reading speed down to 4X and i made an image of RA2. Surprisingly the errors stopped at just over 10000 and it took about 20 minutes. I burnt the image at 16X speed with AWS, burn proof. Started up the game but it seemed as if it were frozen. Chucked the CD. Burnt another copy from the image this time at 4X speed without AWS. Fiola copy works. So can anyone tell me...did the first copy not work because of the burning speed which was at 16X speed or was it because i had the AWS function ticked. My writer does do EFM.

What does anyone make from this info...

What I make from this is that

1. Your disc of RA2 is possibly a little damaged, hence the (unintentional) read errors after sector 10.000, or
2. Your HP isn't reading too well from original discs. And besides,
3. The HP writers do not work very well with AWS. I even thought that they couldn't do EFM but your model indeed seems to be one of the few that can. AWS can screw back-ups for writers that do EFM alone.

I agree with you G@M3FR3@K on all point mentioned. It's still baffling to me why i could read a image of F1 2001 at MAX and burn a perfect copy while reading an image of RA2 at MAX takes forever as well as receiving more errors from the disk after 10000. My point is that both these games are SafeDisc2 protected so why cant i use the same settings like i did for the other.

Could be like you said that the original copies i have are not so well.

Also to comment on your point number 3. I made an image of Yuri's Revenge(C&C) at 4X speed and i burnt it at 16X speed with AWS. Used the copy to install the game and it said that it could not find the setup file for DIRECTX. But the file was there, i checked...also the copy took a while to be read. Made another image of Yuri at 4X speed and burnt it at 4X speed as well without AWS. That copy worked indeed. So i take it i dont have to use AWS when burn SD2 or i just have to lower the writing speed.

What do you think.

Thanks

Even if both games use SafeDisc 2 they don't have to use the same version. And besides that the disc aren't the same and your RA2 disc is probably a little scratched hence the read problems at a higher speed. If your writer supports correct EFM encoding you should not use AWS. It could be that the 16x writing messed things up a bit but usually this shouldn't be a problem, although I must say that SafeDisc 2 sometimes is better copied at a lower speed. It depends on the quality of your writer.

Thanks for all the Help G@M3FR3@K....much appreciated. One more question.

What type of SafeDisc protection is on C&C RENEGADE. Is it perhaps SafeDISC 2.51.021?


Thanks for all the info.

Yes

Thanks FutureProof. Now comes the big test. I'm going to see whether my HPCD16ri will be able to crack this baby. I'm going to buy myself a copy of RENEGADE later.


I'll keep everyone posted.

Thanx for the help Futureproof and G@M3FR3@K.

Good luck

Np. That's why we're here

Just set your error correction to none........
isnt that what clony tells you to do anyway?

I have an update for you G@M3FR3@K....

The only thing i forgot to was to save the log file so i'll just redo everything.

Anyways. I made the image at 4X speed, i made no changes as well to the ERROR CORRECTION, the errors run up to about 10018....took about 20 minutes.

For burning: burnt CD at 4X speed without AWS coz my writer does EFM......

Once the CD was finished, i installed it from the copy, everything went fine. When i tried to play the game it came up with the folowing message: "Eject CD tray and reinsert the CD".

Anyways i was thingking for a while and i remembered the Hide CDR Media function, enabled it in Clone and suddenly i was able to play the game.... Is this good or bad G@M3FR3@K?

To me it is a bit dissappointing coz all my other copies i did not need Hide CDR Media enabled.

After that i tried it with AWS and the outcome was the same, still had to enable Hide CDR Media.

What do you think?

Do you think we can classify the HPCD16ri as being able to do SAfeDISC 2.51.021 ?

This is very good news if the backup will play in a range of other devices. Please try this. You can also send a device report from CloneCD to Olli if it is indeed a 2.51.021 killer.

Thanks FutureProof, i'll test the copy in other readers and once im done i'll post you an update. If it is successful in all readers i test then i'll send a report to Olli.


Thanks

FutureProof already answered it but basically it's a good thing you can play the game even with the 'Hide CDR Media' option enabled. There's no way around this when playing from a writer and has nothing to do with your drives capabilities.

Indeed FutureProof.....the HP CDri16 is a SD2 KILLER i tried the copy i made rom the original in various other cd readers and it worked every time from installing the game to playing it. I picked up no problems at all...


I think i need to buy myself a cd reader now

Thanks for all the support.

Here are the specs for my HP writer:


Buffering 2 MB with hp"s Buffer Under Run Prevention technology




Write Methods Create: track at once, disc at once, variable and fixed packet writing
Copy: session at once, multisession


Encoding Method EFM


Performance Write* CD-R 2x, 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x
CD-RW 2x, 4x, 10x
Read* CD-R 2x, 4x, 8x, 10x, 14x-40x (CAV)
CD-RW 2x, 4x, 8x-20x (CAV)
*where 1x=audio: 175 KB/sec.
Data Mode 2, Form 2: 171.1 KB/sec.
Data (Mode 1 or Mode 2, Form 1): 150 KB/sec.



Logical Recording Format UDF, ISO 9660, CD-DA




Corrrected Error Rate Audio, Data Mode 2, and Mode 2 Form 2: less than 1 uncorrectable frame in 109 bits read.
Data Mode 1, and Mode 2 Form 1: less than 1 uncorrectable frame in 1012 bits read.




Performance, Burst Transfer Rate 16 MB/sec.