Copying an unreadable Amiga CD

[Cyberus]

One of my friends presented me with a CD in the pub earlier - Tower Assault. He had seen it in a charity shop and bought it for me. He must have eagle-eyes, as most of my friends wouldn't even know an Amiga game if hit them in the face, but to find one amongst all the crappy hits of the eighties CDs is no mean feat...

Anyway, I got it home after the pub, popped it into the CD-ROM of my towered A1200 and it just doesn't like it at all. I've looked at the CD, and it doesn't seem particularly scratched or anything (apart from the odd superficial one); I tried cleaning the CD, and this doesn't help either. Now in the past I've had music CDs that play on some (usually newer/better) CD players and not others. So perhaps my aged 4X CD-ROM might not be able to read it, but a newer player might...

So is it possible I could take it to a PC owning friend with a CD writer, whose CD drive might be more likely to read it, and he could try and copy it to a nice new CD-R? Forgive my ignorance, but I do not have a CD-writer, and didn't know if you can just copy an image of a CD or if has to be PC filesystem to make a copy.
Perhaps this is technically piracy, but I do own an original copy!

Cyberus wrote:
One of my friends presented me with a CD in the pub earlier - Tower Assault. He had seen it in a charity shop and bought it for me. He must have eagle-eyes, as most of my friends wouldn't even know an Amiga game if hit them in the face, but to find one amongst all the crappy hits of the eighties CDs is no mean feat...

Anyway, I got it home after the pub, popped it into the CD-ROM of my towered A1200 and it just doesn't like it at all. I've looked at the CD, and it doesn't seem particularly scratched or anything (apart from the odd superficial one); I tried cleaning the CD, and this doesn't help either. Now in the past I've had music CDs that play on some (usually newer/better) CD players and not others. So perhaps my aged 4X CD-ROM might not be able to read it, but a newer player might...

So is it possible I could take it to a PC owning friend with a CD writer and he could try and copy it to a nice new CD-R? Forgive my ignorance, but I do not have a CD-writer, and didn't know if you can just copy an image of a CD or if has to be PC filesystem to make a copy.
Perhaps this is technically piracy, but I do own an original copy!

Get your windows owning friend to use CloneCD to make a bit-for-bit exact replica of the original.

[Markus_Bieler]

Yes, just make a clone copy (image-copy).

If the cd is readable, then also a pc can read it(but can't cope with the code :-) )

mdma wrote:

Cyberus wrote:
One of my friends presented me with a CD in the pub earlier - Tower Assault. He had seen it in a charity shop and bought it for me. He must have eagle-eyes, as most of my friends wouldn't even know an Amiga game if hit them in the face, but to find one amongst all the crappy hits of the eighties CDs is no mean feat...

Anyway, I got it home after the pub, popped it into the CD-ROM of my towered A1200 and it just doesn't like it at all. I've looked at the CD, and it doesn't seem particularly scratched or anything (apart from the odd superficial one); I tried cleaning the CD, and this doesn't help either. Now in the past I've had music CDs that play on some (usually newer/better) CD players and not others. So perhaps my aged 4X CD-ROM might not be able to read it, but a newer player might...

So is it possible I could take it to a PC owning friend with a CD writer and he could try and copy it to a nice new CD-R? Forgive my ignorance, but I do not have a CD-writer, and didn't know if you can just copy an image of a CD or if has to be PC filesystem to make a copy.
Perhaps this is technically piracy, but I do own an original copy!

Get your windows owning friend to use CloneCD to make a bit-for-bit exact replica of the original.

Or maybe ISO-Buster, as it can recognize Rockridge filesystems, and it'll just copy the required data, not the whole CD.

[lempkee]

that game should work in your cdrom....

weird....anyway u sure its not scratched or anything? ...clean it with a toothbrush...

cheers

[Cyberus]

With a toothbrush???
Perhaps some iron wool or a brillo pad would be better.... :-D

[Ilwrath]

Perhaps some iron wool or a brillo pad would be better....

Don't forget the final polish with a sanding wheel.

Seriously, though, I have used CloneCD to copy a non-Windows-readable CD.  (Just out of curiosity I copied an SGI IRIX install CD -- worked fine -- including boot info)  The thing to remember, though, is you are making a bit-for-bit copy of the original CD.  If the original comes up with unreadable areas on the read, your cloned CD will have a "best guess" of those errors written to it.  My thought is that you will probably end up with a perfect copy of a coaster.  Of course, blank CDs are so cheap, it's probably worth a try, anyhow.

[Vincent]

Try giving the CD a good clean with Mr Sheen - works wonders here on CDs and DVDs. :-D

[Stew]

Oh no not Mr. Sheen again  :-D

[takemehomegrandma]

I have to agree with the above speakers. Either try Clone CD (simply *the best* CD duplicator out there (try different (salvage) options in the settings if it doesn't work the first time)) or Mr Sheen! ;-)

[BouncingAyatollah]

Check the CD for scratches ALONG the line of the track on the "silver side" (i.e. not middle to edge, but "sideways"), a supposedly superficial one can be dog's for a CD.

If there is one you can use Brasso or toothpaste to polish it in the direction MIDDLE TO EDGE.

Also, check the LABEL side of the CD, if there is a scratch here, you have a 100% coaster.

You could also try a "disk grinder" like Skip Doctor(tm) for silver-side scratches.

Of course, as you said, easiest to get someone with a CDRW to run off a copy (at 4x or less if you have a 4x drive)!

Finally, try another Amiga CDFS? I have found both AmiCDFS2 and CacheCDFS to be excellent, but the CBM one was cheeks. I did have problems here with the default one pre-OS3.9 versus the above CDFS' with some magazine CDs...

[Paul_Gadd]

Mr Sheen is fantastic for cleaning cds and dvds and now with its improved cleaning formula cleaniing has never been this easy.

Mr Sheen - So the world may know

[pjhutch]

What CDFS are you using? May be the CD is written with a new CDFS in mind. CacheCDFS with AmigaOS 3.5/3.9 or IDEFix is best one to use.