My biggest problem is there are three sectors past the ring that are not passing an ECC/EDC check. Two providing consistent results, but one having two bytes bouncing between two different values.

Because of this and because one of my drives is picking up some extra bytes on a few sectors (unrelated to the previously mentioned three) that breaks the ECC/EDC verification, I'm gonna try getting the disc buffed and attempt these sectors again. I've also purchased a sealed copy off amazon which should get here next week to do comparisons against.

These dumps all have ~462 error sectors. This is the number that you should aim for with these discs.

You basically start by getting a "rough" dump of the data track. I prefer to use CloneCD with Intelligent Bad Sector Scanner and Sector Skip set to 500.
The problem also is that you will still need DIC for the audio tracks, cuesheet etc.. Currently the only way that I know to get DIC to skip through the ring without taking forever is to press the eject button of the drive when it starts retrying sectors, then wait until it filled enough sectors with dummy data, and then pause the command prompt by right clicking into it. Then when the program is paused, press the eject button again and when the disc is loaded again, let command prompt resume and it will continue reading the remaining post-ring area of the disc.
Ideally sarami could implement some kind of smart sector skip function that skips x sectors after x read errors, maybe for a preset range.

When you have a dump of the data track with a wide error range, the next step is to try and read as many sectors as possible before and after the ring, and inject them into the image.
Reentrant made a tool to help automate this process. The tool lacks any documentation / help text, so it's better not to share it for now. Maybe he can make a more "release friendly" version. The tool lets you specify the range that you want to read, the direction (back / forward or both), number of retries for each sector, etc. It looks at the reference image to determine if a sector is corrupt, and then saves any readable sectors to a folder. The tool can then be used to inject the readable sectors into the image.

For the 2 dumps that I did, I used a combination of drives (Optiarc + Samsung + Plextor) to get as many readable sectors as possible. It's a trial and error process that can take several hours. OptiArc drives are well suited for reading most sectors, but keep in mind that you would still need a Plextor drive to dump the rest of the disc (including the audio tracks) properly with DIC.

There should only be a handful of games with this particular protection (maybe only Blue Byte ones). They can be identified by the ring with spikes, that is also visible on the label side. Also, the errors start at around 94% of the data track IIRC, so comradesean's disc might be a different protection.

comradesean wrote:

I'm at a loss. Using the Optiarc with CDM and I'm getting different number of errors every time I run it again.

edit: Got the same number of errors on two different dumps, but different errors and mismatch on CRC.

comradesean wrote:

So... I got tired of running it over and over and I decided to run it with DIC with c2 checking.
DiscImageCreator.exe data I "Settlers III - Disc 1" 4 0 228319 /c2 9999 40960 4

For the time being, you should not use your precious time until they(Jackal, reentrant) release the detailed dumping instruction of the ring protect. If this keeps up, we can't verify that their dumps is good or bad.

I'm not gonna invest any time in this issue until comradesean replies to some pm's that I sent a while ago.

All I can say for now is that trying to dump this with a plextor + DIC is a waste of time.

I have a Sony AD-7200A

I'm at a loss. Using the Optiarc with CDM and I'm getting different number of errors every time I run it again.

edit: Got the same number of errors on two different dumps, but different errors and mismatch on CRC.

For the time being, you should not use your precious time until they(Jackal, reentrant) release the detailed dumping instruction of the ring protect. If this keeps up, we can't verify that their dumps is good or bad.

I bought this. http://redump.org/disc/43270/
There are some error sectors in "SYSTEM.LSK", so this isn't "Ring PROTECH" but "Protected by ring" or "Ring Protect"

http://www.ta-ko.org/index2.htm
According to this site, Ring PROTECH appeared in 2001 summer. The ring protect before 2001 summer is different by manufacturer. e.g. Bleem! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem! Perhaps Blue Byte is also same.

You must be right. It's definitely similar enough to ring protect and it was a 1998 release.

So... I got tired of running it over and over and I decided to run it with DIC with c2 checking.
DiscImageCreator.exe data I "Settlers III - Disc 1" 4 0 228319 /c2 9999 40960 4

So basically it will recheck errored sectors 9,999 times and hopefully whatever is still remaining will be the actual broken sectors. I don't know if this is the best way to go about it, but it's been running for the last week and it's down to 967 remaining error sectors out of a starting 1700. I ran it about 30 times without error checking and none of my dumps matched so this was my next step and once this finishes I will update on the progress.

After this finishes, I will most likely break the data track up into smaller chunks and compare them between each other.

http://www.ta-ko.org/index2.htm
According to this site, Ring PROTECH appeared in 2001 summer. The ring protect before 2001 summer is different by manufacturer. e.g. Bleem! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem! Perhaps Blue Byte is also same.

reentrant wrote:

It could this: http://redump.org/disc/42279/

Also Ring PROTECH cannot be dumped with Plextors.
1) Extract AUDIO using DIC.
2) Extract DATA using OptiARC.

This is the only solution...

Does this disc has "PROTECT.PRO" file? or found the string "Allocator" in bin file?

https://www.gamecopyworld.eu/games/pc_s … _old.shtml

Unreadable Errors
The topside of CD #1 has been "damaged", a ring (about 1 mm) is clearly visible at about 1/3 of the outside of the CD.

GameCopyWorld isn't using the word "Ring PROTECH". If this disc is really Ring PROTECH, GameCopyWorld will also use this word.
Protected disc list: http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cd … tech.shtml
This protect is also adopted in Japanese disc. http://www12.plala.or.jp/t2-bun/list5.html

Sarami, there is no protect.pro file and there are only two .bin files which do not contain the string allocator.

The protection relies on the file MISSIONS.DAT being corrupted from the ring of damaged sectors?, but it is a unique protection created by Blue Byte.

I'm new here! What is DIC? And what's the best method for dumping only Audio CDs? I couldn't find a guide for that

DIC = DiscImageCreator, which can be used to dump audio discs.

It could this: http://redump.org/disc/42279/

Also Ring PROTECH cannot be dumped with Plextors.
1) Extract AUDIO using DIC.
2) Extract DATA using OptiARC.

This is the only solution...

I'm new here! What is DIC? And what's the best method for dumping only Audio CDs? I couldn't find a guide for that

edit: Got the same number of errors on two different dumps, but different errors and mismatch on CRC.

reentrant wrote:

It could this: http://redump.org/disc/42279/

Also Ring PROTECH cannot be dumped with Plextors.
1) Extract AUDIO using DIC.
2) Extract DATA using OptiARC.

This is the only solution...

Does this disc has "PROTECT.PRO" file? or found the string "Allocator" in bin file?

https://www.gamecopyworld.eu/games/pc_s … _old.shtml

Unreadable Errors
The topside of CD #1 has been "damaged", a ring (about 1 mm) is clearly visible at about 1/3 of the outside of the CD.

GameCopyWorld isn't using the word "Ring PROTECH". If this disc is really Ring PROTECH, GameCopyWorld will also use this word.
Protected disc list: http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cd … tech.shtml
This protect is also adopted in Japanese disc. http://www12.plala.or.jp/t2-bun/list5.html

It is definitely similiar, but I don't think it's the exact same protection. Might have been licensed by the company and alteted since I've only ever heard of it on Settlers III and it's expansions. I'll check for the files tonight, but pretty sure they aren't there.

On another note, I ordered an AD-7201S that is on it's way

It could this: http://redump.org/disc/42279/

Also Ring PROTECH cannot be dumped with Plextors.
1) Extract AUDIO using DIC.
2) Extract DATA using OptiARC.

This is the only solution...

Does this disc has "PROTECT.PRO" file? or found the string "Allocator" in bin file?

https://www.gamecopyworld.eu/games/pc_s … _old.shtml

GameCopyWorld isn't using the word "Ring PROTECH". If this disc is really Ring PROTECH, GameCopyWorld will also use this word.
Protected disc list: http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cd … tech.shtml
This protect is also adopted in Japanese disc. http://www12.plala.or.jp/t2-bun/list5.html