Hey, there are sources that try to explain that the PSX boot protection works by having zeroed in values for EDC/ECC of sectors 12-15…
This is NOT true in my opinion…
I made a copy of Crash Bandicoot 2 using CloneCD. Then I stuck in the original PSX disc in the first CD-ROM and the copy in the second CD-ROM.
Then I used CDRWin’s sector viewer to compare sectors 12-15 between original and copied. The copy WAS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE ORIGINAL! All of the ECC/EDC headers were 0’s and everything was identical to the original…
Then I tried it on a unmodded PlayStation and it says “Please insert original PlayStation Disc.”
So I conclude that the protection IS NOT BASED ON BAD SECTORS! This is probably somewhere else…