weak sectors

Weak Sector Utility

Alexander Noé, 13.06.2003

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This program is to experiment with weak sectors, which have been introduced with the SafeDisc 2 - copy protection.

It can create weak sectors as well as scan for them.

Scan for weak sectors

Call:
weak_sectors -sector-size=n -in=filename

For CloneCD images, the sector size is always n = 2352.

You can also enter nothing for filename . Then, the source file name will be read from stdin, meaning that it can be provided through a pipe.
Example: You want to scan the only IMG file which is in the same directory as this tool. This could be done using the following call (e.g. stored in a BAT file):
dir /b *.img | weak_sectors -in= -sector-size=2352

You would receive the following output ("Star Trek - Bridge Commander"):

source file:STBC.img

Sector   1034: Occurence of pattern 5859 (0/0/  0): 1024 times =>  
Sector   1035: Occurence of pattern 5859 (0/0/  0): 1024 times =>  
...
Sector   1120: Occurence of pattern 7D65 (1/1/  0): 1024 times => w
Sector   1121: Occurence of pattern 7D65 (1/1/  0): 1024 times => w
Sector   1122: Occurence of pattern 7D65 (1/1/  0): 1024 times => w
Sector   1123: Occurence of pattern 7D65 (1/1/  0): 1024 times => w
Sector   1154: Occurence of pattern 14B9 (1/2/-14): 1024 times => w
Sector   1185: Occurence of pattern 082A (0/0/  0): 1024 times =>  
...
Sector   1264: Occurence of pattern 3F65 (1/1/  0): 1024 times => w
Sector   1265: Occurence of pattern 3F65 (1/1/  0): 1024 times => w
Sector   1296: Occurence of pattern 1212 (0/2/-14): 1024 times => w
Sector   1327: Occurence of pattern 2D9E (0/1/  0): 1024 times =>  
MBytes done:  757

Meaning:

number of the suspicious sector, with the first sector being number zero
patterns which have been found often in that sector, and how often. 1024 is the maximum ("regular pattern"), while 30 and more is consideres suspicious
"w" => pattern is possibly weak
" " => pattern is most likely not weak

The following weak patterns are currently in use:

SafeDisc 2: 3F65, 7D65
SafeDisc 2.51: 1212, 14B9

SCAN.BAT:
=> scans the first IMG file it finds in the current directory and saves the result to result.txt

Creating test files

This call is a bit more complicated, that's why some files are already prepared to execute typical calls.
Call:
weak_sectors -create -forcemin=n -forcemax=n -forceminsum=n -forcemaxsum=n -audio -minDSV=n -dup=n -gap=n -out=file name -list=list_name

The following ones are important for you:

-create	activates test file creation mode
-dup	specifies the number of copies of each weak patterns which is stored in the output file
-gap	specifies the number of non-weak sectors which is added after a sequence of weak patterns
-out	specifies the name of the output file
-audio	writes unscrambled data into the output file. The files is then to be burned as audio, e.g. using cdrecord
-list	allows to create typical weak sector test files. Possible is sd2old and sd251+

The following files are prepared:

sd2old.bat	creates a test file containg all regular patterns which are on discs up to SafeDisc 2.41
sd251.bat	creates a test file containg all regular patterns which are on discs with SafeDisc 2.51 and higher
bad.bat	creates a test file containg all very bad regular patterns
sheep_3.bat	creates a test file containg all patterns which could be weak
sheep_3_audio.bat	same as sheep_3.bat, but creates an audio file.

Write each test file to a CD-R or CD-RW disc using Mode 1 data format and try to read it back in different drives. A Toshiba DVD-ROM should be among them.

Download: