Spath TagesTools XIII

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers
#1

together with my son we tried to make a copy from the game XIII he bought yesterdag. We read the article “another tages blunder” and we downloaded the ttools.

questions:

  1. An hex search in xiii_cd2.img and in the 4 files tells
    us that the files we are interested in…

is there an article where we can find how to do that, or can someone explain it to us. Or can we (always) use the 2 files spath uses.

  1. We followed all the instructions but when we run imganalyzer the final.img shows this : IMG:
    000000 -> 281214
    281165 -> 281248
    281299 -> 281421
    281372 -> 311857
    the SUB shows a whole lot more lines not the 4 spath has. What did we do wrong?.
#2

Hi,

First of all, make sure that you have the latest version of the
package : it now contains more user friendly tools from Jackass
that you may prefer to mines.

> questions:
> 1. An hex search in xiii_cd2.img and in the 4 files tells
> us that the files we are interested in…
>
> is there an article where we can find how to do that, or can
> someone explain it to us. Or can we (always) use the 2 files
> spath uses.

You can’t be sure and have to check it yourself. For instance to
check sector 281203 with Ultraedit, load the img, then Ctrl+F and
search for 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 62 31 28. Note down
the next bytes, then do the same for the two bin files. The bin
file to select is the one which has different bytes from the img.
Note also that the sector numbers I mentioned are to use with the
european version of XIII, other countries use different twin sectors.

> 2. We followed all the instructions but when we run imganalyzer
> the final.img shows this : IMG:
>
> 000000 -> 281214
> 281165 -> 281248
> 281299 -> 281421
> 281372 -> 311857
> the SUB shows a whole lot more lines not the 4 spath has.
> What did we do wrong?.

This has been also reported by some users : the problem is that the
drive you use to make the first image is not able to extract correctly
some ranges. You can check this by running imganalyzer on xiii_cd2,
and you should see a single range for IMG but lots of them for SUB.
I would therefore suggest to try other drives to extract xiii_cd2
and choose the one which gives you the fewer SUB ranges ; I used
Plextor, and LiteOn was reported to work too. Please read the
end of this thread for the latest results on this :
http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?&threadid=51912&perpage=25&pagenumber=5

Good luck,
–spath.

#3

Spath, Thanks for answering me,

i did exactly as you wrote, first load XIII_cd2.img file. search string
00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 62 31 28 next string was:
00 00 02 00 26 C2 57 2D F4 3E
range1_A.bin: 00 00 02 00 26 C2 57 2D F4 3E
range1_B.bin: AD 97 DF 25 C5 9A AD 94 86 32
range2_A.bin: search string not found
range2_B.bin: search string not found

00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 62 31 29 next string was:
00 00 02 00 9C 2D 82 E8 9F EF
range1_A.bin: 00 00 02 00 9C 2D 82 E8 9F EF
range1_B.bin: E6 7B 8A 94 26 F8 E8 60 39 1E
range2_A.bin: search string not found
range2_B.bin: search string not found

00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 62 31 37 next string was:
18 00 00 00 C2 FF 00 90 40 13
range1_A.bin: 18 00 00 00 C2 FF 00 90 40 13
range1_B.bin: 00 8D 40 62 AE 37 BD 1E 35 5C
range2_A.bin: search string not found
range2_B.bin: search string not found

00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 62 34 02 next string was:
08 00 75 51 91 2E 39 01 C6 17
range1_A.bin: search string not found
range1_B.bin: search string not found
range2_A.bin: 08 00 FA 73 06 AE 6A 02 C6 17
range2_B.bin: 08 00 75 51 91 2E 39 01 C6 17

did i understand you well if i choose range 1_B.bin and range2_A.bin because these strings are different from the strings i found in the XIII_CD2.img.

Harrie

#4

Yes that’s correct. Now you must try to solve
your drive problem.

#5

Thanks for your quick reply,
i managed to get an aopen cdrom from a friend and made new images.
everything worked like you wrote in the ttoolstext.
this is what i get after the imganalyzer analyses the final.img and sub extracted from XIII_2CD.img

IMG:
000000 -> 281212
281163 -> 281248
281299 -> 281424
281375 -> 311857
SUB:
000000 -> 281212
281163 -> 281248
281299 -> 281424
281375 -> 311857
thanks very much,
Harrie

#6

i forgot to ask why the string
00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 62 31 28 etc. works with cd2 but not with cd3 and cd4.
Harrie

#7

00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 is the sector sync and the next 3 bytes
are the sector number in the min:sec:frm format. The sector numbers for CD3
and 4 are in the thread I mentioned previously, with a formula to convert them
into min:sec:frm.

regards,
–spath.

#8

we searched for them in the tread already but didn’t find it, maybe because we don’t know what were looking for.
Or maybe it to difficult stuff for our little minds.

#9

http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?&p=547535&postcount=119

If you don’t want to make it by hand, use Jackass’ tool.

#10

sorry i ment the conversion into min:sec:frm, we used jackass’tool and found the twin sectorss from cd3 and 4, but we couldn’t find a way to convert.

#11

What I meant is that you can use Jackass’ tool (XIIIScan.exe) to directly
extract and insert the twin sectors.

As for the formula, it’s at http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?&p=569097&postcount=227

In other words, sector = 4500min + 75sec + frm (-150 if you count the pregap)

#12

we tried but didn’t succeed. the tool create an 0 bytes patched.ccd file no patched.img or patched.sub.

So we had to do it by hand but we have difficulties with the control-sectors.
for example, you mentioned for cd2 sector 281203 281204 281212 281402 converting them in min:sec:frm we could create strings to control which bin we could use to insert.
for cd3 we found out that we must use range2_A.bin ( we used sector 274625 (61:03:50) but we couldnt find out which range1_?. bin we must use, or which sector, or can we just use the opposit range1_B.bin?
i hope you understand what i mean, my english is not as good as it should be.

after this we wont bother you anymore, you did enough for us, many thanks.

#13

The sectors that are checked on XIII are

CD2: 281203, 281204, 281212, 281402
CD3: 274404, 274405, 274413, 274603
CD4: 287948, 287949, 287957, 288147

They all have the same offset versus the first checked sector, so you can
just shift the range of the two 50 sectors regions accordingly.

#14

just curious,I noticed that not many games are protected with Tages.the games i know are:
Motorracer
XIII
Beyond Good & evil
Are there not more games using Tages. ?
Then i could consider buying one and try to back it up with youre tools :slight_smile: :iagree:

#15

There is one more, Robocop by titus software.

I believe there’s only four games using that exotic protection.

#16

Had the same problem with the empty patched.ccd. Do you have a valid
CCD Image (Intelligent bad sector scanner (100) checked) ? Also i think
BGE-Scanner and the image shouldn’t be in the same folder (if that is the case)

#17

I have seen Tages now in Magellan GPS “MapSend Streets & Destinations Finland” CD. I tried to make a backup of that disk without any luck and finally ClonyXXL reported tages in it. I have not confirmed this finding any other way than ClonyXXL. This software, of cource, is not a game but one example of softwares possibly using Tages.

This is very interesting because this software in not intented for big marketing area (not millions of customers available!) so the licence fee of protection might be quite low. Magellan as a big company is a potential customer though and it might be so, that all future releases of Magellan software contains it.

To me this kind of protectionism is like a pain in ass, because I’m using this software quite regulary. As the CD must be in always when software is running the disk itself is in quite big danger for scratches (laptop in a car…).

Frank Merciless

#18

Sorry for quoting myself.
Now, as i read my old post, it seems to be a little unlogical. Intelligent bad sector scanner (100) checked isn’t important for Tages, but it is one of two factors i had changed, before I had the first successfull patching procedure; changing location of the image was second.

#19

Uhm get cdspace 5 or something it has a profile for tages try it