Why is duplicating so hard?

[Abonis81]

I would be very interested in learning why an exact copy of a ps2 disk cannot be made. It seems to be that a byte by byte duplication of the disk should yield a working game. I realize that someone would have made a product to do this by now if it was feasible, but I would really like to know, what gives?

Also, I have seen the term TOC in a lot of posts. And I assume it means table of contents. Am I correct? Why do people sometimes have to insert a "high TOC" disc to load a backup?

Lastly, are there any good links that might explain some of the internal workings of the backup process, or dvd duplication process?

[Icelight]

I would be very interested in learning why an exact copy of a ps2 disk cannot be made. It seems to be that a byte by byte duplication of the disk should yield a working game. I realize that someone would have made a product to do this by now if it was feasible, but I would really like to know, what gives?

I believe it has to do with the fact that commercial disks are 'pressed' rather than burned. They also have security codes on them that are not repeatable by burning a disk (at least I think that's how it works).

There is one hacked code, however, I believe it was Crazy Taxi. So, if you owned a disk presser, and had that code, you could concievably backup PS2 games and have them selfboot, no? Would that not be how HDLoader and the Swap Magic disks work?

[corf]

I am pretty sure all my Datel stuff i.e. Action Replay etc uses the Crazy Taxi hack.

As above: information that is missing from a normal copy is only able to be put on the disks in a CD/DVD factory (i.e. Manufacturing press)

TOC refers to Disk Swapping i.e. You boot with a original disx that is 500MB and then swap it for a copy that is over 500MB. The ps2 still thinks you have a 500MB disc in the drive and won't access beyond it - Meaning the copy which is greater than 500MB will hang/crash at a certain point or not load depending on what data is beyond the 500MB limit.

[Unununium]

The reason it can't be done is because of the intentionally burned bad sectors that retail burners cannot replicate. Though, swap magic has gotten around it by physically removing parts of the metal between the plastics of the disc; the parts that need to be read as bad sectors. I remember when i first got my swapmagic cds and looked at the bottom I though they were defective.

[Artifact]

Even though this has been covered a million times, in the Leadin on PS2 discs, Sony ran a wobble along the lines on the CD. Our normal readers just read the center of the wobble and interpret it as a regular disc. Kinda hard to explain without pictures...

[Freak]

I think I remember reading that it can be done by some burners but all the burners that can do it are not avilable to the public... But if u got ahold of one of these i guess u could. a dvd press might work too

[AutoMX]

I'm pretty sure theres no burners that do it other than full development systems, which in turn don't make the discs but rather burn ONLY to official PS2 blank dev discs..
If you can get a hold of those 2 items, and a dev console, i seriously doubt you would care to burn anything since you would have to have so many Sony connections that games would be given to you for free at that point.

[EspI69]

lo, hey ive got a dev console in my closet right now! and its collecting dust... lol nah im just play...ill sell it to u for $5 lolololololol (crack head)... Ill also sell u any building , house... bridge .... street .....and even any sidewalk that u want! ,... u want it then its urs for $5

[Freak]

I think one of the burners i was thinking of was made by sony and was capable of reading the sectors that standard burners can't. but was discontinued shortly after... Wish I could remember where I read this. At any rate it really isn't possable.

[_zaphod_]

Here's the real reason you can't burn a selfboot.

The protection signature is encoded in the wobble of the pregap between leadin and first track. The pc drives cannot even see the wobble, or scan for it in ANY way! Tha'ts why it took so long to puzzle this out.

Normally pressed discs have no wobble. WObble was invented to store timing information on CDR media so the laser can seek to blank kareas. this is Absolute Time In Pregrove. You CANNOT burn a wobble at all.

PSone (and, i suspect ps2) discs have a wobble in them that changes amplitude as an encoding method. The ATIP wobble uses FREQUENCY modulation for iTs encoding.

Therefore you cannot dupe a disc to CDR, because the mastered wobble and the ATIP wobble conflict, and you can't write wobble anyway. A custom burner that's capable of selectively obliterating the ATIP wobble could do the trick and replicate the encoding, but no such burner currently exists.

Developer playstation 2 boxes will boot burrns made with cdvdgen on supported hardware. YOu must burn onto the special media to send a disc to SOny to master.

Incidentally, this same trick, or a variation thereof is used to encode the disc IDs. that's why you need a real ps2 to un the disc ID grabber tool. the PC CANNOT read the wobble and decode.