I have a bunch of betas that may or may not be unique. In any case, I fear for the death of them in the long term, and I would like to make sure that I have disk images of them now. What is the best way to archive these? Iso files or bin files or what? I am using ImgBurn now, but I'm open to recommendations. Thanks, ian
There are basically 3 levels of data on a disc. 1. The files (2048 bytes per sector) 2. The error correction data (additional 304 bytes per sector; audio tracks use this space instead of having error correction. 3. Subchannel data (almost never used in the past, now some copy protection mechanisms rely on it). 1 alone is equivalent to a standard .iso file and is considered not so great (mostly because most .iso dumps are done badly; but also because it's not strictly a 1:1 disc dump). 1+2 is a BIN/CUE dump, which I've been doing for all my discs for a while now. Properly done, this ensures archival of all data. 1+2+3 is done in a format has .img, .ccd and .sub (for the subchannel data). I only use this when it's necessary. For BIN/CUE's, there are some programs, of which the most highly regarded are CDRWin (which I use on Windows) and CloneCD (I think). On Linux/Unix, you can use cdrdao (let me know and I'll explain how). For the third method, there's only CloneCD I think, right now. Now choosing the proper format is only half the work. You have to watch out for some things: * DON'T use error correcting mechanisms when dumping * try to dump at low speeds (1-4x), especially audio tracks * do several dumps and see if they match (preferably on different drives, I do three different dumps and compare them; I have some tools I wrote to compare dumps and "choose" the best one, but there's some manual work involved I'm afraid) * use very good CD/DVD drives with good lasers and good error benchmarks (otherwise you'll get a lot of wrong reads) Then there's audio tracks. I usually dump them with EAC (Exact Audio Copy), which is superb at dumping audio tracks (it has some algorithms that make sure it's a good dump). But again, there's some manual work involved. Thinking about it, this is a lot work... I should really think about coding a set of tools to automate all of this. Dumping CD protos is a nightmare (old CD-R's... aaaaaaah) Hope that helps.
I really appreciate all the information. Unfortunately, I'm a far better collector than I am a technical guy, so I need something quick and dirty and relatively reliable. I'll start using CloneCD ongoing, though. If something more automated comes along, I'd love to use it.
Twilight pointed me to this URL: http://www.redump.org/ The instructions are a bit intense given my ability to commit to major projects. I pretty much plan to use CloneCD unless I can get some other simple approach together. I was proud enough to be making ISOs, but it looks like I'll have to redo most of those. I could test the ISOs, but I doubt I could challenge ever bit. Note that I am talking about Beta discs, not final burns, stuff meant to play on a debug unit.
very insightful. Always good to read good advice. An application handling the matter in the structure you followed in your post would be a great tool for anyone wanting to archive disk images. Who knows, there might even be a market for it!
