Alcohol 120% -- any good?

every single game i buy i make a backup copy. it's just too easy to scratch
the original CDs and then have a game you can't play. or my friend's kids
come over and manage to find them and use them as frisbees. (don't believe,
eh? -- you should see)

while i have used CloneCD (4.1.x.x) in the past, i've noticed it doesn't
make good backup copies of newer games, like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3:
Ravenshield. Nero 6 doesn't either, no matter what settings i use. Same deal
with Unreal II. The new ClonyXXL doesn't automatically launch CloneCD
anymore and in many cases you have to install the software *first* before it
can detect the type of copyright protection. that's really not a problem for
me, but i want to install and play the game with my backup cds to make sure
the backups are good, and use the originals only if the backup goes bad.
that way i can always burn another copy if one of the backup cds go bad.

i've heard good things about Alcohol 120%, but i want to get some (pos/neg)
feedback about the program before considering a purchase of it.

p.s. yes, i know all about copyright protections and i _purchase my own
games_. i'm not looking to pirate games. i do the same thing with my audio
CDs. it just makes good sense to have a backup.

The message
from "Northern Light" contains these words:

snip

i've heard good things about Alcohol 120%, but i want to get some (pos/neg)
feedback about the program before considering a purchase of it.

John,
Alcohol 120% should do the job for you,but be aware that
Safedisk 2.9+ protected games will not run on a computer that has
Alcohol installed on it without your using a 'no-cd' patch on the
installed game.
When you try to run the game Safedisk will fail to verify that the
correct cd is in the cd rom drive of your computer if you have Alcohol
installed,try it on the latest add-on for Medal of Honor.

--
Cheers,
Derek,

"75% of statistics are made up on the spur of the moment"

"Northern Light" wrote in message
news
every single game i buy i make a backup copy. it's just too easy to
scratch
the original CDs and then have a game you can't play. or my friend's kids
come over and manage to find them and use them as frisbees. (don't
believe,
eh? -- you should see)

Usually at this point you are getting flamed....but it is a real situation,
so I won't do this to you.

while i have used CloneCD (4.1.x.x) in the past, i've noticed it doesn't
make good backup copies of newer games, like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3:
Ravenshield. Nero 6 doesn't either, no matter what settings i use. Same
deal
with Unreal II. The new ClonyXXL doesn't automatically launch CloneCD
anymore and in many cases you have to install the software *first* before
it
can detect the type of copyright protection. that's really not a problem
for
me, but i want to install and play the game with my backup cds to make
sure
the backups are good, and use the originals only if the backup goes bad.
that way i can always burn another copy if one of the backup cds go bad.

Nero 6 isn't designed to copy the copy protection. ClonyXXL needs a program
called "Profiler" now, they had a little legal thing where the old ClonyXXL
was designed to defeat copy protection, so they seperated the two so
ClonyXXL only shows you what copy protection there is, and Profiler can only
tell you how to copy all the types of protection, but can't tell you which
one you have, but combining the two is the same thing as the old ClonyXXL.

So, when you get a new game, you need to install it, then run ClonyXXL, if
it has some protection that is only there once it is installed, then you can
copy the disc using that Profile, and then uninstall the game, and test your
backup.

i've heard good things about Alcohol 120%, but i want to get some
(pos/neg)
feedback about the program before considering a purchase of it.

I use it, but I also use ClonyXXL with it. Profiler doesn't work with it,
since it's designed for CloneCD. The only bad thing I can say about Alcohol
120% is that it can't detect the type of protection (or if it can I don't
know of that feature).

But it is still a good piece of software, and I do like the feature of
Virtual CD-ROMs. Once you make an image, you can mount it on the virtual
drive, and see if it works. Then you can burn it to disc. I run ClonyXXL
on the virtual drive to see what kind of protection it has, so that it
matches up with the original.

p.s. yes, i know all about copyright protections and i _purchase my own
games_. i'm not looking to pirate games. i do the same thing with my audio
CDs. it just makes good sense to have a backup.

Under law, it's your right, exercise it!!

On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 02:28:36 GMT, "Northern Light"
wrote:

}i've heard good things about Alcohol 120%, but i want to get some (pos/neg)
}feedback about the program before considering a purchase of it.

The problem I had with Alcohol is it slowed my CD burning software
down (both Nero and Easy CD) in Win XP Pro. In Nero my burn buffer
would go from 97% down to 16% and back again in a constant cycle
(dozens of burn proof corrections extending the burn time by nearly 50
percent). It was like UDMA wasn't working on my Plextor 708a. I tried
unmounting all the virtual drives first then uninstalled Alcohol but
still no go. I had to do a manual removal of all the Alcohol entries
in the registry to fix the problem (which sucked since they use about
6 different driver names to do the same thing).

i've purchased and installed Alcohol 120%. i'm hoping to have better luck
with it than CloneCD. i can see that it's easier to use and has more
copyright protections listed in it's options. i'll still be using ClonyXXL
to determine the protection.

from what i've read in this newsgroup as well as others, Alcohol can be a
bit slower when making backup CDs of copyrighted CDs.

what's been your experience?


"Anonymous Joe" wrote in message
news:_Uakb.809622$Ho3.218947@sccrnsc03...
"Northern Light" wrote in message
news
every single game i buy i make a backup copy. it's just too easy to
scratch
the original CDs and then have a game you can't play. or my friend's
kids
come over and manage to find them and use them as frisbees. (don't
believe,
eh? -- you should see)

Usually at this point you are getting flamed....but it is a real
situation,
so I won't do this to you.

while i have used CloneCD (4.1.x.x) in the past, i've noticed it doesn't
make good backup copies of newer games, like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3:
Ravenshield. Nero 6 doesn't either, no matter what settings i use. Same
deal
with Unreal II. The new ClonyXXL doesn't automatically launch CloneCD
anymore and in many cases you have to install the software *first*
before
it
can detect the type of copyright protection. that's really not a problem
for
me, but i want to install and play the game with my backup cds to make
sure
the backups are good, and use the originals only if the backup goes bad.
that way i can always burn another copy if one of the backup cds go bad.

Nero 6 isn't designed to copy the copy protection. ClonyXXL needs a
program
called "Profiler" now, they had a little legal thing where the old
ClonyXXL
was designed to defeat copy protection, so they seperated the two so
ClonyXXL only shows you what copy protection there is, and Profiler can
only
tell you how to copy all the types of protection, but can't tell you which
one you have, but combining the two is the same thing as the old ClonyXXL.

So, when you get a new game, you need to install it, then run ClonyXXL, if
it has some protection that is only there once it is installed, then you
can
copy the disc using that Profile, and then uninstall the game, and test
your
backup.

i've heard good things about Alcohol 120%, but i want to get some
(pos/neg)
feedback about the program before considering a purchase of it.

I use it, but I also use ClonyXXL with it. Profiler doesn't work with it,
since it's designed for CloneCD. The only bad thing I can say about
Alcohol
120% is that it can't detect the type of protection (or if it can I don't
know of that feature).

But it is still a good piece of software, and I do like the feature of
Virtual CD-ROMs. Once you make an image, you can mount it on the virtual
drive, and see if it works. Then you can burn it to disc. I run ClonyXXL
on the virtual drive to see what kind of protection it has, so that it
matches up with the original.

p.s. yes, i know all about copyright protections and i _purchase my own
games_. i'm not looking to pirate games. i do the same thing with my
audio
CDs. it just makes good sense to have a backup.

Under law, it's your right, exercise it!!