An odd burning prob (maybe)

[Curtis]

I've been trying to copy some of my original games, and I've come across a strange problem.

The discs I've copied so far(Quake, Vcop, Last Bronx) have all copied fine, without error, in either Nero or CDRWIN. To load them, I use the swap trick on a Model 2 Australian Saturn, and they load fine.

The (alleged) problem comes if I leave the CD in the drive without swapping. Instead of dumping to the bios (as with the ISO's I have downloaded), the CD will check for the security code, and sit at the Saturn logo for a while, just spinning up/down.

After a while it eventually does goto the bios screen, where it does the same thing before crashing.

The only thing I can think of is that the media I'm using is slightly dodgy (BASF/EMTEC 80min is usually fine for most applications though...)

Any suggestions (or is this even a problem?)

Thanks

 

[MasterAkumaMatata]

Quote: from Curtis on 1:55 am on Oct. 1, 2001

I've been trying to copy some of my original games, and I've come across a strange problem.

The discs I've copied so far(Quake, Vcop, Last Bronx) have all copied fine, without error, in either Nero or CDRWIN. To load them, I use the swap trick on a Model 2 Australian Saturn, and they load fine.

The (alleged) problem comes if I leave the CD in the drive without swapping. Instead of dumping to the bios (as with the ISO's I have downloaded), the CD will check for the security code, and sit at the Saturn logo for a while, just spinning up/down.

After a while it eventually does goto the bios screen, where it does the same thing before crashing.

You have a model 2 Australian Saturn, so you need to make sure the country code of the backup game matches that of your Saturn. To convert the country code to match that of your Saturn, use the Saturn Country Code Changer found in the Miscellaneous page under the Saturn Utilities section.

If that is not it, I dunno what is, since you weren't very clear as to what backup game you were referring to.

 

[Curtis]

Sorry,

All the games mentioned are exhibiting the same problem. Also, the problem isn't in burning ISO's, rather in copying original CD's - all are suitable for use in a standard Australian Saturn

 

[ExCyber]

I think this has to do with how official Saturn CDs are pressed. I've run into the same problem, and I think it's due to the CD reader losing tracking when it tries to move out to read the security code; padding the ISO to fill up the disc made that problem go away, although that was on a homebrew game that has no audio tracks; it might cause problems for commercial games.

 

[Curtis]

Oh right, that makes sense.

Padding the ISO 😕 ?

 

[ExCyber]

I just added data to the end of the ISO file, probably breaks the ISO 9660 standard, but the game doesn't care since it never tries to read that part... I added around 700MB to this game's ISO (it's a small game, Sporting Clays by Charles Doty) and burned it on an 80 minute disc (which has a mode 1 capacity of about 700MB)

 

[MasterAkumaMatata]

Hmm, padding data to the end as opposed to the beginning, interesting...How do you do it? On the cuesheet? Appending with a hexeditor? A padding tool you coded yourself? Remastering the CD? Oh wait, you said a homebrewed game that has no audio tracks, nevermind.

 

[ExCyber]

I used dd and bash under cygwin to copy 700,000,256 bytes from /dev/zero to the end of satclays.iso (this is available for download from http://saturndev.emuvibes.com if you're interested).

Doing this might not screw up commercial games, but there doesn't seem to be a good reason to bother (I only did it to try to better understand the protection mechanism).

edit: here is the thread that inspired the experiment, and which contains my original observations about it.

(Edited by ExCyber at 9:30 am on Oct. 2, 2001)