yes, I understand, why Multi-Session support was removed with Plextor CD drives in the General case, but why remove it in case of Cactus protected CD, when the only confirmed Plextor drive (so far) that can do it is PX-5224? just ignore the 2nd session do not dump it - it's garbage data. It's very easy to detect, at least Cactus CDS200 V5, please, read my details below:
Maybe my main point was missed in the conversation - the 2nd session is just there as part of the protection, i.e. to even further confuse the drive on top of the C1/C2 errors pressed on the discs at the factory.
So, the 2nd session is additional lawyer of protection similar to how Key2Audio protection uses fake sessions, etc. Isn't then the logical thing to do - check for Cactus and if yes then ignore the 2nd session and dump only of the 1st session (if necessary, I am not familiar and knowledgeable about image formats, fix the dumped image to indicate only one session or if that's hard, not possible or not preferred, fill with 0x55 or 0x00 or something like that for all data in the 2nd session - do not care to read that garbage from the disc).
* How to detect Cactus:
- at least Cactus V5 is ultra simple to detect, because there is file:
that in case of the latest revision (at least known to me, it's also the hardest protection for a drive to overcome) and on which I am testing contains:
What do you all think about the following ReDump/DiscImageCreator Standard for Cactus discs:
* add check to DiscImageCreator about "\player\version.txt" file on the CD, if it's there, read and report the Cactus version back to the user, in such case allow use of PX-5224 (even better inform the user he/she needs PX-5224 and quit otherwise). Dump only the 1st session, discard the 2nd session as it's just garbage data. Preferably, even add command line-switch to DiscImageCreator for the user to select it's Cactus disc manually, if for some reason the Cactus cannot be detected - I am suggesting such option, because on some discs both "A-Ray Scanner" and "ClonyXXL" tools fail to detect the Cactus, because there is no "\player\version.txt" file, which is very rare case (I have only one such CD). You can see all Cactus versions I listed in a table here:
http://forum.redump.org/topic/40001/int … otections/
BTW, Sony seems to do exactly what I am suggesting above in the firmware of their PS3 BD Drive - I tested it today connected to PC - for Cactus disc it doesn't even need authentication to read it, but it hides the 2nd session makes the disc look as single session to the computer. Also, interesting fact that I found - it seems Sony process the Cactus disc entirely in PS3 BD firmware, because the drive rips all tracks correctly, but with +2305 offset, no matter what offset is set in ExactAudioCopy. So, PS3 BD drive also is capable to fully overcome Cactus like PX-5224, but it seems in a different way - hides the 2nd session and adds that weird +2305 sample offset to each track. However, PS3 BD drive is amazing - rips Cactus 2 times faster than PX-5224 without any single error - all bytes are correct - compared in Hex-editor, just that 2305 samples offset is added to the beginning of each track. So, PS3 BD C1/C2 error correction is out of this world - to fix 8000 such errors on such high read speed - I tested over 30 other drives on Cactus so far and PS3 BD drive blows my mind (KEM-450 drive from a slim console), really unbelievable and amazing! Especially, when drives like Asus BW-16D1HT fail so spectacularly on Cactus disc and go to 0.3X speed, struggling and struggling.
[EDIT] even in cases when both "A-Ray Scanner" and "ClonyXXL" tools fail to detect the Cactus, it's still very easy to detect it, because there is "CACTUSPJ.EXE" file in those cases. So, based on that I guess the correct detection algorithm (at least for the time being) is: check for "player\version.txt" file and if there is proper "CDS200" string inside it with version report it, if no then check for "CACTUSPJ.EXE" and report some unknown exact version of CDS200 V3/V4 detected. I have no V5 discs without "player\version.txt". So, those without it are CDS200 V3/V4 for sure, they are also released 2-3 years before discs with CDS200 V5.