How to make your own Mini Image.

[Joe Forster/STA]

Exactly! It seems to be too simple and, therefore, probably not working in many (most?) cases!

[Zulu]

Hmm.. GTA San Andreas and Serious Sam II are also working; my last DVD to test is Vietcong 2, but first i have to install and make good B5T.

[caki]

Its pretty much just making a maxi image, without the hex editing. So yeah, add it to the FAQ. And add if 500 doesnt work, try 1000 etc...

For Safedisc DVDs it should be the same thing, just do end at 500-1000 sectors before the end of the DVD. Didnt try that yet, but im pretty sure that will work

Also, if you want to make a maxi image for a Safedisc and Securom CD, it would require a bit more complicated work, but with bushound it shouldnt be that hard. Anyways, maxi image from DVD is more useful IMO, and only CD maxi images should be made if there is no DVD version out for the game, or if the DVD maxi doesnt work for the CD version.

[ziph]

Originally Posted by Joe Forster/STA

@ziph: Whoops, sorry then...

Sweet as dude....must be that time of the month

Sorry for being so irritable...

[Zulu]

Vietcong 2 working, too.
Also tested motoGP 3 (CD): working, but 95MB compressed, and like caki mentioned: not so useful anyway.

@caki
Made some tests with NFSMW; 1100096 sectors, last sector that must be in image is 902160. Before that there are four single sectors and two longer ranges (+ the stuff i missed), so leaving the last 1000 sectors isn't enough, at least for this title; you need Bushound for DVD's, too. Got it to 2,2MB compressed, of course i missed some gaps but they're really not worth it.

[neptun]

Is it possible that this method is working for starforce 3.6 also?Can you explain how to understand which sectors are important and which can be removed from the full backup image to make maxi image.

[Zulu]

Originally Posted by neptun

Can you explain how to understand which sectors are important and which can be removed from the full backup image to make maxi image.

Sorry, no, but Bushound can ; if you start logging at the right moment, the trial (which can only log 32 commands) is also ok for Safedisc as you principally only need the last 10 commands of the check to get the sectors.

EDIT:
@ziph
Just found, that there's a new version of sfdrvup (i guess it's 3.7, but not the very new 3.07.013): http://www.star-force.com/protection/users/

EDIT2:
@neptun
To be more precise:
Install Bushound, Reboot; Start Bushound, go to "Devices" and choose your physical/virtual drive; then go to "Settings", "Phases to capture": uncheck all but "CDB"; "Columns to display": uncheck all but "Data", now go to "Capture", start your Safedisc(DVD) game, wait 1 second (2?, half a?, yes, thats the tricky part, as i mentioned: only 32 commands can be logged with the trial), then hit run; end the game and save your log; do the hex->dez conversion

Scheme of the last commands of Safedisc(DVD) check:

-
-
-
-
- 00 04 1a 1050
- 00 04 1b 1051
- 00 04 1c 1052
- 00 04 1d 1053
- 00 04 1e 1054
a 00 04 1f 1055
- 00 00 00
- 00 00 00
- 00 00 10
- 00 00 00
b 00 ca 63 51811
d 0d 90 69 888937
c 09 90 6a 626794
f 17 34 7b 1520763
e 12 b7 6f 1226607

Gaps:
a+1 to b-1
b+1 to c-1
c+1 to d-1
d+1 to e-1
e+1 to f-1
f+1 to last sector of DVD

... pretty logical

[Zulu]

Originally Posted by Joe Forster/STA

Is this guide useful and informative enough to be added to our forum FAQ?

After some further tests with my friends' Securom DVD games i would now say : Yes
Chronicles of Riddick, Pro Evolution Soccer 4, Battlefront 2 and Juiced also working

[neptun]

Zulu thank you for this information.I was wondering is there any way to transform the full backup image into maxi image?Is there a tool which can cut the unneeded sectors from the full image or is it possible to mount my backup image in virtual drive and make maxi image with alcohol or blindwrite from the virtual drive.Is this gonna work?

[Zulu]

You can use a capable (best up to 4GB or more) Hexeditor; convert (*2048) sectors to bytes, then choose the blocks/gaps and fill them with zeroes (of course that's no "cutting" or rather a fixed mini-image)

Originally Posted by neptun

I was wondering is there any way to transform the full backup image into maxi image?

I haven't tried BW5Tweaker on a mounted image, but if it's valid... why shouldn't that work ? Otherwise with Hexeditor.

[leezer3]

Apologies if I'm being dopey, but could someone post screenies of the exact settings needed in b5tweaker please? - I don't seem to be missing any sectors.

Cheers

-Leezer-

[Zulu]

@leezer3
Choose 'Read' as Start Page and leave everything else set to 'Automatic'; after you added the gap zones of your title click on 'Run BlindWrite', choose your drive and start the image creation. Of course your tweaker won't look exactly like in my fictitious example (just for better illustration):

[leezer3]

Ah, got it now
Now to answer the readers next question, the best way to find the number of sectors on a DVD is to download DVD-Decryptor and set it to ISO read mode- It will then tell you the number of sectors on your DVD.

-Leezer-

[fire_scorpion]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

I could make a beautiful little tutorial to show you all how to create your own Mini Images but there is already an excellent one to be found here.

the site is fantastic than u man