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:
The following weak patterns are currently in use: 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: