01 December 2023, 09:22 | #1 |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Rome
Posts: 173
|
Disk analyzing and writing tools for bypassing copy protection?
What tools of the past and present can be used to analyze disk sectors of original games in order to be crashed? I have read that many protections write sectors in particular way so the software can recognize if it's the original or a copied one.
Just by using asm one I have realized that I cannot write to some sectors at all, maybe because they are not recognized as good sectors (maybe sync mark missing, custom or oddly placed). So the question is, how developers had full control on disk write? |
01 December 2023, 09:26 | #2 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Germany
Posts: 1,648
|
Copy-protected disks were normally created based on a template by professional disk duplication systems. If you could just write some software to write the same data yourself to a disk using standard hardware, the whole copy protection would be rather pointless.
You need to use flux-based disk controllers. |
01 December 2023, 09:53 | #3 | |
This cat is no more
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: FRANCE
Age: 52
Posts: 8,196
|
Quote:
but forget about this for longtracks or RNcopylock/single protected tracks like speedlock or Herdnon, although Cyclone hardware dongle did wonders for some disks. The question was: how developers created the disks, it was with a special hardware trace machine. But you could technically duplicate MFM non-long-track wirh an amiga too. That said I think I remember some PD games or demos being MFM, so only physically shared or MFMWarp I think the trace machines were better for everything even unprotected disks because copies were much more reliable and it was faster to mass produce too. |
|
01 December 2023, 10:16 | #4 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Germany
Posts: 1,648
|
Hint: "normally" (=not always), "could". Or do I use these words wrongly?
Those protections you could duplicate using X-Copy were pointless, just like I wrote. |
01 December 2023, 11:06 | #5 |
This cat is no more
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: FRANCE
Age: 52
Posts: 8,196
|
not completely pointless, as they were often coupled with manual/password/codewheel protection, and cracking the game was harder because you could not rewrite tracks with changed data easily.
I remember "cracking" Zool codewheel from a copy of my original. The crack was in the bootblock and the MFM data was untouched. But such cracks weren't very popular as people would generally prefer full DOS-track crack (and Zool was cracked that way, probably using a powerful packer to be able to pack 2 160-track $1800 length disks to 160 $1600 length!) |
01 December 2023, 11:29 | #6 | |
Natteravn
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Herford / Germany
Posts: 2,500
|
Quote:
Any combination of monitor/disassembler and assembler works. Analyzing the code starts with the boot block, which is always readable. Then you would usually use the already analyzed code to write your own programs for reading the protected parts of the disk, which you have to analyze and crack. The final step is to put all the data you have extracted into standard format on a new disk - and adapt the disk routines accordingly. Having to write tracks in a protected format usually doesn't happen. At least I never did that. |
|
01 December 2023, 12:56 | #7 |
Thalion Webshrine
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Oxford
Posts: 14,354
|
The tools that were developed for Kryoflux / SuperCopy Pro / GreaseWeazel hardware flux level disk imagers can analyse flux level disk images and (sometimes) identify the type of copy protection. But you will need to own one of the three hardware devices to produce your own flux level images. GreaseWeazel v4.1 is relatively cheap from AmigaKit.
With these devices you can duplicate copy protected disks as well as make flux images compatible with most emulators. |
01 December 2023, 15:01 | #8 |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Rome
Posts: 173
|
Indeed
Well I just formed my question not very well, mostly I wish to know how crackers found how to get rid of the copy protection, so I wonder how and what tools used. Did those hardware tools cited by alexh (or hardware devices in general) were necessary to uncrack disk in that era? |
01 December 2023, 16:06 | #9 |
HOL/FTP busy bee
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Germany
Age: 46
Posts: 31,601
|
h0ffman has posted some very recent videos on the topic: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=116023
(and it's 'crack' a disk ) |
01 December 2023, 19:08 | #10 |
move.l #$c0ff33,throat
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Berlin/Joymoney
Posts: 6,863
|
|
01 December 2023, 22:38 | #11 |
Lemon. / Core Design
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Tier 5
Posts: 1,212
|
While I was learning and coding, I was always in awe of the crackers. Cracking encrypted code, rearranging disk Content to find space for a cracktro, one filing games, squeezing 2 disk games onto 1 disk etc.. Seemed like voodoo to me
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Copy protection? | mai | project.TOSEC (amiga only) | 20 | 09 November 2008 14:39 |
Best Copy Protection? | RedskullDC | Nostalgia & memories | 15 | 29 August 2008 10:09 |
I need a disk copying tool that bypasses copy protection schemes | boing_1000 | request.Apps | 9 | 28 January 2006 03:24 |
Copy Protection | lopos2000 | support.Games | 7 | 24 August 2005 10:48 |
x-copy & tools (1993)(-) | Ian | request.Apps | 6 | 23 April 2002 21:49 |
|
|