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

[PsyMan]

Before someone leads the whole situation out of control I would like to say that I created the thread just to help people create ISOs from their own games without having to use illegal rips.
I don't want this thread to be closed because of someone who's going to post a link to a site that hosts illegal matterial or by someone who'll start asking questions about where to find Dreamcast ISOs or any other kind of things that he shouldn't ask for.
So be carefull about what you say and when you post links to a site.

 

[STC-Fan]

Psy, thanks for those words of wisdom

Apart from just blowing up a double post that emerged earlier, I've updated the contents for the next revision of my GD-ROM ripping results + info guide. Not amazingly interesting, but it's coming along nicely now and I hope to have it up by Friday, maybe before then. With any luck, this doc *should* be able to get everything across in Plain English... well, hopefully. =P

I've also got hold of a big list of(non-)working drives that StateS linked me to on BOOB! today (the link was later deleted as the rest of the site had illegal content - or at least, broken links to, but some of it is probably still up so I won't post it here) - the only problem is that although it has a lot of non-working drives, few have their model numbers listed by them, so I am in the progress of finding all the possible models for each drive - for instance, LG's 52x CD-ROM drive, of which there are no less than 5 different models.

UPDATE: Well, after slogging away at it for a couple of hours, I have decided to upload a work-in-progress of my much-better-organized GD-ROM swap trick results + other info document - check the usual link in my sig. I am aware that the current page is not reflective of the contents page plan but that will be addressed later on. As I've now laid down the whole layout in some form now though, adding the rest of the stuff shouldn't be too difficult.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Updated toolkit is now up. Includes a newer version of ForceASPI, 1.8, for those who may have trouble with 1.7, the original data trap disc from Yursoft, and the usual load of stuff. Enjoy.

 

[StateS]

Damn, those activation e-mails take a long time to get to our e-mails don't they...

Here's some more information that can help you out with this method:

1.) Here is the audio trap disc, the one STC-Fan has (from the links I gave him) is the data trap disc, get the audio trap disc from here:

http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3FY2U29YO73S41OLCFPOWHH90G

Ok here's the deal everyone, please let STC-Fan download this file first cause yousendit only let's a limited number of downloads go through... Thanks, after he downloads the files, you can download away...

2.) I tried to translate the document yursoft made on this method, it's almost 100 percent translated but there are some sentences which are very confusing to understand, so I'll leave that to the professional spanish people... It says in the document that if you try to rip Audio data with the data trap disc that it will fail every time, and usually when there is CDDA there are two tracks one audio, and one data (I think, I'm not too sure though) so maybe that's the reason you have trouble ripping double high density discs... (just a guess)

3.) The Plextor Platinum (or is it Premium) can burn 1 gig CDs from normal 700 meg or 650 meg CDs that work on the Dreamcast... I'm thinking that if it can burn 1 gig CDs then it can read 1 gig CDs, so maybe it can read GDs, and of course there are probably drives that can read the discs burned with the Plextor drives and then there are drives that can't... I'll try looking for a list of supported drives...

4.) The document made by yursoft seems to be easier to follow than the original one made by inetd, It gives you a few pointers which the original did not give you...

5.) I'm still working on my document and the toolkit, currently the toolkit is 6.89 megs I think... it includes the document in 3 different formats, and the software needed to copy the GDs, except Isobuster, CloneCD, and CDRWin (I don't want to include warez in my toolkit, if you want that software go to the homepages and download them yourselves... sorry).

6.) Pick up sticks

7.) I just love to number my phrases, it makes my posts seem that much more important...

8.) The yamaha 2100s is supposed to have a firmware hack to be able to read the GDs, at least that is what I read over at some forum or was it in a document, I don't know I just know that that is what I read, oh there is supposed to be a pioneer with the same problem...

P.S.
The document with the capital "T" is the version I tried translating, I'm including the original also so that some kind soul can help translate the document and repost it... I would be very grateful if someone did...

Thanks and keep up the good work!!! :bouncy:

 

[Stezo2k]

wow, great news, can't believe i missed this topic. well done

 

[STC-Fan]

Damn, those activation e-mails take a long time to get to our e-mails don't they...

Here's some more information that can help you out with this method:

1.) Here is the audio trap disc, the one STC-Fan has (from the links I gave him) is the data trap disc, get the audio trap disc from here:

http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3FY2U29YO73S41OLCFPOWHH90G

Ok here's the deal everyone, please let STC-Fan download this file first cause yousendit only let's a limited number of downloads go through... Thanks, after he downloads the files, you can download away...

Just dowloaded it, thanks

I should be able to give it a test run tomorrow, for now I'll just chuck it in the temporary toolkit I made up and update it. (EDIT #2: Can't test it just yet, I'm out of CD-Rs ¬_¬)

7.) I just love to number my phrases, it makes my posts seem that much more important...

Heh, but remember, it looks a lot clearer too. That's why my GD-ROM ripping info etc. doc is in numbered sections now. Took me quite a while to do it all (I used Ability Write to convert my RTF version to HTML last week but since then I've stuck to Notepad for doing everything else) but the net result has been well worth it. Before it's just been in big, semi-random, disorganized lumps of text. So at least more than three people can understand it now

8.) The yamaha 2100s is supposed to have a firmware hack to be able to read the GDs, at least that is what I read over at some forum or was it in a document, I don't know I just know that that is what I read, oh there is supposed to be a pioneer with the same problem...

Sweet. I thought it was the CRW-F1 from some rumours I'd read on some forums, but that choice of drive makes a lot more sense, as it's related to the Yamaha drive in the Katana GD Writer (model HKT-0400), so I'll change that around in my doc soon.

My CRW-2100S isn't the same as the Katana writer though - I found some nice photos of a dismantled GD Writer unit and the number on the drive's PCB no. is XU934, whereas my drive's PCB no. is XY571. (Note: I decided to mirror these pics on my site for convenience, because it saves people time having to download the .RAR file the images are in on the creator's site)

Oh, and one more thing about the Plextor - I added a thing in my doc about that. Personally I don't think it would work, but of course anyone with a PlexWriter Premium is more than willing to try. Assuming they could bring themselves to open it... think even I'd get a bit weary of opening one, what with the thought of "OMG must not break my uber optical drive" I can understand why people would be afraid to draw their screwdrivers :|

 

[StateS]

..., but of course anyone with a PlexWriter Premium is more than willing to try. Assuming they could bring themselves to open it... think even I'd get a bit weary of opening one, what with the thought of "OMG must not break my uber optical drive" I can understand why people would be afraid to draw their screwdrivers :|

LOL, yeah I know what you mean, but trust me if the computer I have at home was only mine (I have a brother) I would try it out with the Plextor, but I wouldn't be able to do it anyway cause I don't have any original DC games... Oh well, I'll just leave the testing to you, I'll be in charge of information I guess... -_-¡ ug...

 

[STC-Fan]

To anyone who wanted to know about being able to rip NAOMI GD-ROMs, here's a bit of info I got from someone:

"They require small security key chips to work properly. While you could probably rip the data using your method, you'll likely need a way of dumping the info on said chip to make them playable - here's a pic of a GD-ROM plus security chip, and a pic of a hellish Naomi GD-ROM setup."

So in other words, maybe, but I wouldn't be able to play them since I have no equipment to dump the security chips.

Borisz: I think The Guru (the guy in the MAME Dumping Team) has dumped a load of NAOMI games already, so it's not worth me taking the time to dump them myself.

With regards to getting CD-Rs... erm... why can't you get any? Having said that, I went down the PC fair today, marched to the stallholder who sells nothing but optical media & cases & other bits, and he didn't have any Verbatim CD-Rs, in fact he hardly had *any* CD-Rs, period.

So I had to settle with a polythene-wrapped (i.e. not even on a spindle) pack of 25x Intenso's, which are made with the short-strategy Pthalocyanine dye... not that I've had any short-strategy CD-Rs fail yet, I just like to play it safe. Only other CD-Rs he had were TDKs and I've heard they're terrible. Otherwise, all he had was [re-]writable DVD media... looks like it'll be time for me to make the jump to a DVD writer soon (probably an NEC, as they're cheap & fairly speedy), thought I would've worn out this Sony CD-RW drive by now

 

[Borisz]

I'd wait with the Naomi stuff till the MAME team starts messing with it. Even if its like 5 years. (god, how big will be the CHD pack when they add naomi dumps? It'll jump from 20 gb to a terabyte easily.) It's not like we have anything hyper special on them, and it seems like we couldn't use their drives to dump regular DC discs. In fact I suspect the Naomi dumps to be made with DCs once they start ripping it.

I'll try this ripping method with my Soul Calibur original on either my ASUS cd reader or my Samsung combo drive. Both have expired warranty, in fact the Samsung drive is half busted anyway.
However, only once I get some blank CDRs. Which won't be anyday soon =P

 

[STC-Fan]

Hey StateS, I asked Greg2k if he could translate this Yursoft GD-ROM ripping guide - he told me he'll try and find time to do it this week among his exams. Not that we need to have the guide translated really soon - after all, progress on this project is moving quite slowly and it prolly isn't gonna change for a while yet =P

 

[StateS]

Hey STC-Fan I actually saved the posts which were deleted over at boob!, right before I responded to anything in the forums (sort of save first, take it home, read it, and ask questions later ) I have it saved on my harddisk, if you need them I can post them on this forum for everyone to see how this all got started...

 

[STC-Fan]

Well, I don't need them at the moment - most of those old ones were horrendously out of date anyway, since that topic had been languishing there since August. I can't remember anything in them that I haven't covered somewhere in my testing + results doc offhand, but if I do, I'll give you a shout.

 

[StateS]

Oh look we've made it to page 3 :bouncy:

Hey about that Yamaha drive... I have the Katana SDK at home (downloaded from the internet a while back) and I remember searching through it for interesting stuff (there was a whole bunch of things there... from source codes to general information about the Dreamcast) and I remember seeing something in the GDrom burning program, I'm not sure but I think it was the firmware which we are looking for (like I said I'm not sure, it's just a hunch), after I execute the program it asks me if I want to flash the firmware... I'll check it out today (finally finished my school project so now I have more time on my hands)... I'll tell you the details the next time I come on emutalk... Oh and I might release my toolkit and document (mostly finished document... still missing some information on the dcxfer) during the next week cause I don't have school until Thursday (ug... my English is getting crappy... I don't usually write in English since I'm studying in Portugal).

Well it's worth a shot right? ...

P.S.
Can I include your gd ripping results page in my toolkit?

 

[raiden_quake]

May it harm my cd-rom?

 

[chevi]

the untranslated part:
!!!!!!!!!Donde el sector a partir de donde extrajimos las pistas de audio que debería ser el primero sector de la 1º pista de audio que haya!!!!!!!!!!
means:
"where the sector we started extracting audio tracks from, that should be the first sector of the first existing audio track"

I could have translated the whole document but I hadn´t seen this thread XD , sorry guys

 

[STC-Fan]

raiden_quake: it is very unlikely that this process could damage your CD-ROM drive.

chevi: don't worry about it, I've got a friend translating it at the moment. He's a bit busy with school work but I think he'll have it done "soon". =P

But, thanks for translating that bit for us, I was wondering what it was, what with all the exclamation marks around it.

Problem is, while Yursoft's method of audio track extraction is good, and works with games like ChuChu Rocket (where it's impossible to extract the audio tracks to induvidual .WAV files from track 10 onwards, at least it is with my LITE-ON anyway), I don't know how to extract the files from the resulting .BIN file. This is because GD Lister 1.7 never prompts me for the source file containing the audio (usually AUDIO.BIN) after asking me for the starting sector of the audio track. And I have no idea why.

Since I cannot find a copy of GD Lister 1.6 anywhere on the Net, I am stuck as to how to extract them. WinISO, ISObuster and Nero cannot open them, and Isofix cannot correct the image (if it's even necessary to correct the LBA, I don't know). A bit of help here would be nice...

EDIT: StateS, feel free to add my results doc to your guide. There's also that big list of CD/DVD drives that [don't] work with the rip process I've also done, but don't add that yet because it's nowhere NEAR finished off. I want to make sure that all the drive makes + descriptions have model numbers by them. Else it'll be far too vague to be helpful.

 

[MasterPhW]

I really enjoy reading this thread, it would be so great if you guys would find a real way to rip a DC game with your method... I have here nearly 50 Original Games and would really enjoy to play them in full quality on chankast... hope to see more in future!

 

[StateS]

I think I found a way to separate the audio tracks... (i think the solution was at that italian translation of the yursoft doc)

Try this:

extract.exe first.iso second.iso (Beginning lba of the second iso + 150)

for example if the beginning of the second lba is 450000 the the command is like this:

extract.exe first.iso second.iso 450150 (just and example)

I think this is it, but I'm not sure...

Just out of curiosity what goes wrong with the CDDA tracks at extraction?

 

[STC-Fan]

Nah, that's the method used to join together two seperate data tracks - I haven't needed to use that yet because there is still a problem with getting the 2nd data track from ChuChu Rocket (only 90% of it can be extracted, and some of the files are buggy, though the latter could be down to me inputting the wrong LBA [again] x___x).

Basically, when I attempt to extract the audio tracks using GD Lister, I never get a dialog box prompting me to locate the source file after I input the starting LBA of the track. I even tried with the same version of GD Lister as mentioned the guide - 1.6 - and still it never prompted me for the source.

However, within a minute of looking at your post, I actually started to think a bit harder - after all, the AUDIO.BIN file is just every audio track lumped together in a big file. I then hit upon the idea of opening it in Cool Edit - and sure enough, it worked! So we now have all the audio from ChuChu Rocket

As for getting the 2nd data track, it is an annoying problem, but possibly one that could be solved by applying a different firmware to my LITE-ON drive. Only got about 10 more firmwares to test out so it may just be extractable sooner or later... :bouncy:

(P.S. This forum's smiley set rocks my socks. Ahem. )

 

[STC-Fan]

Uh oh, double post, but it's a major update to my GD-ROM testing doc. To summarize it: basically, I have now tested every single available firmware for my LITE-ON LTD-165H DVD-ROM drive in an attempt to get two problem games rippable, Metropolis Street Racer and ChuChu Rocket. The former has now been successfully ripped with the application of firmware revision CH0J, but on the latter, the second small data track (right at the end of the disc) remains unrippable fully (only 89% can be correctly ripped).

All of it can be ripped in CDRWIN with "Ignore" (probably also with "Replace") activated under the "Error Recovery" options, but of course that means the last 11% is just garbage data. I only bothered ripping a full image so I could get the size of it in megabytes, which is exactly 84.

For now though, I have no more drives to test, so I might try and get hold of another DVD-ROM drive soon as those are the most ideal for testing. Don't expect all updates to my documents to stop though: I'll still be carrying on adding drive model numbers to the other compatibility list when I have time. I wouldn't take them for granted though; one should seriously doubt that the original Spanish author(s) of the two compatibility lists, for example, meant that ALL LG 52x drives don't work. Why do I say that? Because there's no less than five different 52x LG drives in existence. =P

Finally, I have how added some info on how to rip & extract DC audio tracks extracted in .BIN format, as described in Yursoft's guide. Since he didn't mention what settings you need to use in CDRWIN to get the audio tracks out in that format, I've now added this info. Also added is info on how to actually get the audio tracks out of the BIN file.

w00t. :bouncy:

 

[StateS]

I know that this is a little late to ask you (since you already got the audio tracks extracted successfully) but I think there are two ways to rip the audio data...

1.) In GDLister open up the toc and select the audio track which you wish to extract from the Audio.bin file (make sure that you have the toc and the audio.bin files in the same directory) then it should pop up a dialog or something that will ask you for the audio.bin and then the rest I think is pretty understandable already.

2.) Get the beginning and ending LBA for each audio track from the toc and then extract the CDDA tracks one-by-one...

Anyway it's just that not everyone has or can afford Cool Edit Pro :cough: :cough: :cough: Me included, cause I'm dirt poor, yup, my parents work and I don't, meaning they make money and I don't, meaning they have money and I don't... :blush:

About the games with the two data tracks...

Were you able to rip them? the second track I mean cause something struck me (i was half sleeping at the time), try to Insert the trap disc, read the toc, and extract the first data track, to let's say data1.iso or bin or whatever the extension is (forgot) after extracting the first one, insert the trap disc again, read the toc again and try extracting the second data track to a separate iso let's call this one data2.iso or whatever. I wonder if it will rip it to the end this way?

Sorry if I'm being a bit a bit pushy or rude, I'm just so excited with the progress of this method. Good job and keep up the good work!!!