[CS-FSLUG] Microsoft CDs

[Tim Young]

Sorry I have not responded sooner.  Too busy.

The nature of the CD copy protection is to keep you from doing exactly 
what you are doing.  Yes, there are some pretty bizarre moral issues 
with it.  I was a software pirate before I realized it was ethically 
wrong (I was about 14 years old at the time), and so I know a fair bit 
about copy-protection...  You can approach Microsoft and ask them for 
another CD, and they will replace it at a cost of $15 a CD I believe...

Since most people balk at purchasing the same CD again, there are a few 
options available to you.  Most programs actually check to see that 
certain tracks on the CD are not readable.  So just copying off the data 
will not actually get you a copy of the CD.  BUT, there are many hacker 
sites out there that have patched exe files that do not check for the 
damaged sector while the CD is loading.  By writing the patched file 
over the original file, when it loads, it does not check for the damaged 
sector, and thus the backup copy actually works.

I am not speaking for the legality of this sort of solution, but that is 
about the only way to make copies.  There are tools that can try to 
recreate the damaged spots in the CD, but those damaged spots are hard 
to get to burn properly, etc.

Yet another reason to love free software.

    - Tim Young

Nathan T. wrote:

>After trying to make an ISO with dd, I think it's quite possible that
>some part of the disk is too damaged to make a copy since the iso
>stops before getting a Mb in.
>
>The only part I'm curious about is why the iso images I get each time
>are all varying sizes, they don't all run into problems at the same
>place.
>
>I think there is an argument for dd that will continue even if it runs
>into errors on the disk, I might have to go for that option.
>
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