Are there still CD drives that support RAW DAO 96?

[Guest]

From what I've understood, newer DVD drives don't support sub-channel data reading. I would probably need one for backing up a few CD-ROM games because they use sub-channels to store some copyright protection data. But as deep as I've searched there are only a few used ones on sale. Most of the forum discussions about models that support this feature are pre-2010 and now nobody seems to talk about them anywhere. I know it's old technology, but the newer DVD and Blu-ray drives don't support it.
Sooo... I guess the question is: What happened to sub-channel CD readers?

P.S. Bonus question: I tried to grasp this concept as well as I could, but if somebody understands this better, could you explain to me all this RAW SAO, DAO, 96 etc. stuff?

 

[Guest]

RAW DAO 96:

2352 bytes RAW Data + 96 Bytes P-W Subchannel Data. It allows writing of all subchannel information, including Digital Signatures, CD-Text, ISRC, Catalog Numbers, CD+G, CD+Midi, Gaps, Indices and Crazy TOCs.

DAO RAW 96 is only necessary for LibCrypt. LibCrypt doesn't REALLY need the R-W SubChannels. Like SecuROM, the protection is stored in sub-Q. You can read as RAW 16. So CDRWin can read SecuROM and LibCrypt just not in the normal "BIN/CUE" way. You have to do "read sectors".

When *writing* in 16 byte mode, the drive corrects the CRC of sub-Q. When writing in 96-byte mode, the drive doesn't correct anything. The extra 80 bytes (Sub R-W) don't do anything helpful for LibCrypt/SecuROM. 96-byte mode just disables CRC correction, and that's all that LibCrypt needs more than SecuROM!

So, essentially, you just need to read the CDs as RAW 16 🙂

Thank you very much for your response! I'm glad somebody finally explains this to me.

So a few questions that arose from your explanation:
1) You said that DAO RAW 96 is only necessary for LibCrypt. Does that mean I don't need it if I'm not reading PS discs? Because I need a copy of a PC CD game. What level of "reading ability" will I need for that?
2) What is BIN/CUE?
3) What are basically the differences between ripping music in i.e. Windows' ripping utility and game CDs with other software? Isn't ripping just ripping regardless of it being music, movies, games etc,?
4) Could you, please, explain your previous post in somewhat more "layman" terms. I never really understood much of the optical drives technology and every explanation I found looked like science fiction (allegorically). I would really like to know about it and you seem to know much about this area. I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Guest]

Essentially, it is going to come down to trying different CD/DVD copying softwares. The trick is, you are going to have to set the speed in the ripping software to 1x. BIN/CUE is 2 file system that is the raw contents of a CD/DVD image. Some software is built around ripping music or movies rather than data or game backups.

Unfortunately, there is going to be some trial and error involved here.

With regard to a more layman explanation, think of this is a optional track on a CD that extra information can be stored in extremely small quantities/sizes. Since it is "optional" players/readers have to be told to look there, like in the case of copy protection.

However, to give you an idea of how extinct all of this is, I haven't had a optical drive on my computer in about 4 years, lol.

Good luck!

Why does the speed have to be set to 1x? I've seen people say this, but how does the speed affect ripping?

So, BIN/CUE is a system for raw image content? Does ISO include data loss then? Also, ISO is a single file. Why do you get two for BIN/CUE then? Why is it separated?

By the way, what freeware would you recommend for this unfortunately unavoidable process? I think not every program supports the sub-channel thingy...

Believe me, I want this to go extinct more than anyone because of how complicated it is, but I have those few games I can't buy digitally.🙁 Even Windows 10 is now distributed on flash drives (how it should be)... I hope after all this hassle I can leave them in a history book.