Dumping GD-ROMS using an ordinary CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive!!!

[PsyMan]

GD-ROMS on PC? Yeap, it's true! You can do it on your own without even a Dreamcast or a hacked firmware or whatever.
The info is out there for quite some time but there weren't any known attemps that worked up until now...
Now the bad news:

1. The particular method works with specific drives (actually the only known drive that works almost completely is the Lite-on LTD-165H DVD-ROM) and there are some problems even with it.
2. The procedure is quite (actually very) complicated for the average user.
3. The CD/DVD-ROM drive needs to be "modified" in a cruel way in order to work (and it is a bit dangerous if you don't know what you're doing).
4. Some audio tracks seem to be badly ripped.

Source of the info:
http://boob.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard3/ikonboard.cgi?s=41edb8fe34ffffff;act=ST;f=1;t=2742
http://www.cdrom-guide.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275601

/me goes to get a Lite-on LTD-165H DVD-ROM and "test" some games on Chankast :happy:

PS: It seems that zedeckseightyone (someone from the boob forums who managed to test some drives and rip some games) was about to post this (or something about it) but he had a problem with his registration so I did it

 

[abba]

good to hear it but the authors say it might work on diffrent drives i am gona enjoy this gd rom hack umm yea thanks to you to psyman

 

[STC-Fan]

Hey everyone. Nice to see my (yes, this is my more oft-used online nick =P) topic is making some impact elsewhere.

One clarifications though:

GD-ROMS on PC? Yeap, it's true! You can do it on your own without even a Dreamcast or a hacked firmware or whatever.
The info is out there for quite some time but there weren't any known attemps that worked up until now...
Now the bad news:

1. The CD/DVD-ROM drive needs to be "modified" in a cruel way in order to work (and it is a bit dangerous if you don't know what you're doing).
2. Some audio tracks seem to be badly ripped.

Modified in a "cruel" way only if you consider bending a couple of drive shell hooking clips outwards slighty (to make for easy removal) to be "cruel" =P

Unless of course you read the part in my GD-ROM rip results doc that talks about soldering chips off of / onto a couple of LG drives... that's not related to ripping with the Lite-ON drive at all. Sorry if you thought it was, but it's purely hypothetical (read: actually stupid) and I have made it a bit clearer. It is not something I am going to pursue in future, either.

PS: It seems that zedeckseightyone (someone from the boob forums who managed to test some drives and rip some games) was about to post this (or something about it) but he had a problem with his registration so I did it

Thanks for posting this here in my place . As you can tell the activation mail came through today so that's sorted now.

 

[retroK]

Wow, these are really good news!
Please keep us informed.

 

[-indecisive-]

wicked!
i'd better read up on how it was done since it always seemed so impossible

 

[PsyMan]

One clarifications though:


Modified in a "cruel" way only if you consider bending a couple of drive shell hooking clips outwards slighty (to make for easy removal) to be "cruel"

By saying "cruel way" I meant that you remove parts of the drive that shouldn't normaly be removed (you cannot even place the drive in the case in order to be able to change disks). Maybe the word I used wasn't very proper so it's good that you're here to make it more clear

PS: The link in your post is not valid.

 

[Trotterwatch]

Fixed the link for you Good stuff btw.

 

[STC-Fan]

By saying "cruel way" I meant that you remove parts of the drive that shouldn't normaly be removed (you cannot even place the drive in the case in order to be able to change disks). Maybe the word I used wasn't very proper so it's good that you're here to make it more clear

Heh, OK then. I do sympathize with your concerns - it is quite silly, really, having to have the PC opened up all the time. When I first started testing drives out with this rip process, I had hoped that I could hook up drives for testing via a neat USB2 -> IDE converter - meaning that there would be no need to have my PC's lid removed, and would also mean I could have the default drive in the PC plugged in at the same time.

As for removing the parts of the test drive that you shouldn't remove, the annoyance of having to do this varies from drive to drive: best I've dealt with so far have been the LGs (disc fastener is held with plastic clips; drive PCB has cables arranged on one side so that one can flip it over and examine the opposite side with ease), while the worst brand was probably the Samsung, with a disc fastener held in with a hideous system with two clips per side that is easy to remove, but very hard to get back in because it has to be tilted at an odd angle & slid into place. As a result, I was just a *little* bit angry when it couldn't even rip a table of contents (TOC) file from a GD-ROM disc

However, CDRWIN does not support this kind of adapter, and I don't know if it ever will. I have meant to ask Golden Hawk if they would consider adding it but I haven't yet, as it would not only mean I wouldn't need the PC open, but would also allow me to change between drives while still in Windows - changing between drives at the moment requires the PC to be shut down as the IDE interface does not support hot-swapping.

One more thing, in case you were wondering - those adapters aren't too expensive. You can probably get one from a local computer fair for about £20 now. Another good thing about them is that if you have old IDE HDDs kicking around, with such an adapter you can put them to use as backup devices, like with an external HDD.

 

[PsyMan]

I see...
As a side note, have you ever tried to rip using Isobuster's sector ripping function. It actually acts like CDRWIN's ripping method so it may work.

 

[STC-Fan]

To anyone trying to get to my topic on BOOB: It's been deleted by one of the staff members for allegedly promoting warez. So until an administrator there gives the thumbs-up (or potentially thumbs-down) for it to be re-posted, check the links in my sig for: the ripping guide by StateS, my ripping results document, and my "unofficial" (since StateS is going to put up his own one soon) ripping toolkit (which does NOT contain any programs bundled with cracks or keygens, dammit).

P.S. Should I consider this thread also under threat from admins / mods here because it may promote warez? At least let me make a backup of it or give me some kind of warning, first :|

P.P.S - is my signature visible to anyone below my posts? It isn't over here

 

[retroK]

Hi STC-Fan,

no your signature is not visible.

 

[-indecisive-]

i don't see how it's promoting warez at all. it's the complete opposite

 

[Reloaded]

This sounds interesting, if we could rip Naomi GD-Roms I'm in Heaven :icecream:
I'd even buy some Gd-roms to dump :blush:

Keep up the good work, and keep us posted... :bouncy: :bouncy:

 

[STC-Fan]

i don't see how it's promoting warez at all. it's the complete opposite

Well, thanks for that honest opinion. But unfortunately I made a rather dumb post today at BOOB! and someone by the name of "nowarezplease" has pointed out not only everything stupid (and sarcastic - I mean, did he really think I would just vomit at blatant deletion of a topic? Ugh - I'll admit though, what I said in 7) WAS pretty silly and I take that back) I said, but also that I am a "warez monkey" and that my guide is only targeted at "warez monkeys" because according to his evidently broad world opinion those are the only people who will take advantage of it. Anyone who wants legit backups (but reading his post you wouldn't think such people even existed) seems to be willing to pay lots of money for a BBA / LAN adapter.

While I did spend a fair bit of money attempting this rip project (though not really that much, and £40 is not even half of a BBA's cost), once I've succeeded, it means that everyone else only has to buy drive XYZ, and while whatever model that is may not even be more common than a BBA / LAN adapter, at least it's another option open to them that's acceptably fast.

And of course, I can still recoup some of that money by selling some of the drives I have. Contrary to what he said about breaking drives - that was through playing games, a farily normal activity, I haven't broken ONE attempting to rip DC games.

But anyway, I wouldn't bother putting any more replies to this guy. He seems to be far too determined and far too smart for me to have a go at any longer. Yes, buying a DC is a nice thing to do, and perhaps in hindsight it would've been better, but I still feel that I have made a small contribution to those who DO want to back up their games through non-BBA / coders' cable methods. I'm going to stop going on now because I'm just feeling more and more like an idiot. Bye for now.

EDIT: Oh, I see now, your newly-entered sig only appears after you make a new post - I thought that once I had setup my sig that it would appear in all posts I'd made prior to doing it, like on Invision.

 

[-indecisive-]

how in the hell are "warez monkeys" going to benefit from this?! all they have to do is download the bloody games, instead of ripping their originals. and i thought this is what the dc emu devs wanted originaly, a way to play your originals in your pc.
and he's saying that dumping gd-roms through your drive is promoting warez when the bba/lan method is the reason people can download dc games to begin with. so his argument that the bba/lan method is cheaper and less time consuming is totally BS. BS!

and people have been talking about ways to run/dump gd-roms on their dvd-rom drives forever on b00b. damn, i just don't see why they're getting totally hypocritical all of a sudden.

edit:
on happier note, are naomi gd-roms similar enough to dc gd-roms that they would be able to be ripped by your method as well?

 

[STC-Fan]

on happier note, are naomi gd-roms similar enough to dc gd-roms that they would be able to be ripped by your method as well?

I'm not familiar with any of the specifics of NAOMI GD-ROMs, but I think they do have some kind of copy protection bits on them. And then again, I just flicked through the NAOMI page on System16.com and it seems they don't. So I suppose they could be ripped.

Unfortunately, I've been hit by some bad luck - yesterday I bought MSR which is a single data track game, something that SHOULD be rippable given that I've already ripped Sonic Adventure & Fur Fighters, which are single data track games themselves - and yet, the extraction process in CDRWIN failed at 89%, with not a single error up to that point, after which the no. of errors shot up while the bar remained stuck at 89% for about 10 minutes before I gave up and cancelled it - reason being that I told CDRWIN to ignore errors, which is good for scratched GDs. A second attempt at ripping it using a copy of the original Yursoft data trap disc also resulted in the same failure.

Why MSR can't be ripped with my drive I haven't a clue, yet the drive is still working fine. The disc itself does have some very light scratch-like marks - typical sort of disc wear - but then so does my copy of Fur Fighters, and that rips 100%, no errors.

One more thing - my GD-ROM rip results + trap disc info + other info doc has been updated with a new trap disc method suggested by someone on BOOB!. I have yet to try it out, but it could be a possible solution to these woes with MSR, and maybe even GD discs with mixed data & audio tracks.

 

[Rich_T]

I dont understand what the imporatance of this is. (new to chankast)

Would we beable to use our original discs directly without the need to make a bootable cd?

Rich

 

[-indecisive-]

progress. yummy

edit: ^ no, just that you can rip your own originals. only works on a certain modified dvd drive, too

 

[STC-Fan]

[Removed duplicate post]

 

[STC-Fan]

Rich_T: no, the ripped ISOs are not directly playable, *however* they can be easily converted into selfbooting DC ISOs using the excellent GUI made by Ex0skelet0r, which of course there is a topic about on these forums

But the point is that, by doing this, we're trying to encourage people to rip their own games to play them in Chankast, instead of getting pirate copies off of the Internet - which to my understanding often have video & audio heavily downsampled so that the images will fit onto a CD, or even have entire audio tracks removed! And of course, GD-ROM discs are not amazingly reliable - I've heard of one person who's gone through two copies of Sonic Adventure 2, for one thing.

Yes, of course I might be making myself look like a hypocrite saying that I want to cut down the number of people downloading pirated games, as I've downloaded pirate software myself (as it happens, I don't download retail games of any sort anyway), but that doesn't mean I don't buy plenty of legitimate software, audio CDs etc. as well. OK, so I tend to buy second-hand shops, boot fairs, and to a lesser extent charity shops most of the time, but that isn't illegal.

Usually I only download full versions of programs if they can only be purcahsed over the Internet, are not available in the shops, or do not have UK distributors* who take mail order; in all seriousness, if you pointed me to a UK distributor of CDRWIN who accepted postal orders (which are one of the safest methods of payment - there's another reason why not to use PayPal and company, if they were that good I am sure PayPalSucks.com would not be in existence *shot*) then I would get it. £30 is nothing if it's an amazingly useful program.

Though IMHO some things like Nero 6 are too expensive - £50-60 is the going price for v6 Reloaded - sometimes I wish they could make a nice cut-down version with just the CD/DVD burning software in it, without Nero VisionExpress and the other stuff that I probably wouldn't use.

But anyway... enough of that slightly-off-topic ramble. =P

Good thing happened today - StateS linked me to a site with a huge list of drives verified to work - and also a load that don't work - with the GD-ROM rip process.

Oh and BTW I found that list of drives which works and don't work at this address:

http://membres.lycos.fr/multisistemas/lista_cdroms_que_funcionan.htm - functional

http://membres.lycos.fr/multisistemas/lista_cdroms.htm - non-functional

However, I have already noticed that one of the drives classed as working is one that I have - the Yamaha 2100S - which I tested ages ago and found not to be capable of extracting a thing and caused CDRWIN to come up with "unrecoverable drive error" messages. Though seeing as StateS also linked me to the original Yursoft data trap disc - which I didn't use at the time of testing - it may be worth a go to have another test of this drive.

* That said - CDRWIN doesn't even have ANY international distributors, let alone in the UK. Compare with Hyperionics (who make HyperSnap-DX) who have loads. However, I was able to get a legit full version of the aforementioned from a PC Answers (PCA) cover disc. I also used to have a legit full version of WinISO that came with PCA, but I lost the disc it was on. Magazines do tend to put old versions of stuff on, yes, but if it works great, why complain? PCA are no exception to the rule. Nor are Personal Computer World, who gave away a full version of Ability Office 4 Basics. It does have to be activated with a (free) serial, but it lasts for a year. And it kicks arse.