COPYING:

• 1 to 1 Copy
• Recommended Burning Programs
• Supported Recorders

1:1 COPY:

Many (most??) people don't have a clue what a 1:1 copy means so I guess it's time I clear some things up. First some general explanations to (hopefully) make you understand why a 1:1 copy is ESSENTIAL when it comes to burning protected CDs. The most important thing to know is that a CD contains A LOT more information than just the files and directories. For example:

Lead In/Lead Out (Lead In stores CD structure, Lead Out is mainly to let the CDROM know where the CD ends)
CD subchannel (storing e.g. CD Text, Text and synchro data on Karaoke CDs and is used for several copy protections)
This is also the reason why the CD size shown in Windows Explorer (or any other file manager) and the size of an image done by a burning program ALWAYS differ. The image is always bigger in size as it contains many more data than just the files. In an extreme case this difference can be 600 MB (german game called "Frank Busemann Zehnkampf" - the actual game files are about 30 or 40 MB, the rest of the CD are unreadable sectors).

A 1:1 copy simply means to use the "CD COPY"-option of a burning program, preferrably one of the programs listed here! This means the burning program reads the CD sector by sector and burns it the same way. The opposite would be a file copy (can NEVER be a 1:1 copy!!!) where just all files are read and then stored on CD. This way the files would probably not even be in the same place (means in another sector range) as on the original CD. It would be very easy to identify such a CD as a copy! And copy protections have MUCH more options to identify a copy - I hope you now see why just copying files from CD to HD and then burning them or 'drag 'n' drop' in a burning program will extremly seldom produce a running copy of a copy protected CD.

Each burning program has an option to sector copy a CD, some burning programs don't do anything else (like Alcohol 120%, CloneCD or Blindwrite). We'll concentrate on these programs as they have in most cases more options and abilities to create REALLY perfect 1:1 copies. Although it's possible to do perfect copies of nearly any protected CD success completely depends on A) the used recorder, B) the used burning program and C) the protection the CD uses. Many protections (oversized CDs, illegal TOC etc.) can be copied on every recorder and with nearly every burning program. Other protections like e.g. Safedisc or Securom need special recorders and burning programs.

For DAEMON Tools a 1:1 copy is necessary in any way for the reasons listed above. Whether you want to mount an image to PHANTOM CDROM or if you want to run a copied CD doesn't matter. Without a correctly created 1:1 Image or CD DAEMON Tools cannot work!!!

RECOMMENDED BURNING PROGRAMS:

• Alcohol 120%
• CloneCD
• DiscDump
• Blindread and Blindwrite
• DiscJuggler
• GameJack 2

SUPPORTED RECORDERS:

The following websites have a list of recorders capable of making 1 to 1 backups of some protected cds

• CD Mate Recorder List
• Blindwrite Hardware Compatibility List
• Disc Juggler Hardware List
• Feurio Supported CD writers
Nero Supported Recorders List