Tools

The Hardware:
 

Tools include the hardware and media, as well as the software used to prepare, create, extract, mount and burn disk-images of both CD and DVD types.
 

CD-Burners:

There are too many makes and models to be enumerated here. Generally speaking: CD Burners can be internally-mounted, or external. They can be SCSI, or IDE, USB, or Firewire. Most are IDE or EIDE and are internal. There was a time when only SCSI-burners were considered worth getting, but that was when most everyone ran single-tasking operating systems, and before modern hardware and UDMA. While SCSI still maintains an overall advantage over the other interfaces, that advantage is tiny compared to what it once was; and today's EIDE drives, which use Ultra DMA, are quite good enough for high-speed burning in a multi-tasking environment, provided you have the computer and operating system to support that. Since UDMA is interrupt-driven it is essentially real-time, so that one no longer need leave the room when the disk is burning, but can continue using the computer normally. Also all modern CD-burners have technology which allows them to recover from the dreaded "buffer-underun" error, which, in prior years, has caused millions of coasters.
 

Copy-protection:

It has long been held that certain makes of drive have some advantages over other makes in the precision with which they are able to make a disk image, and to burn such an image precisely as recorded in the image file. As it happens, many of the copy-protection schemes stem from the lack of precision of burners. Most burner makes and models are simply not capable of making and burning "true" images, particularly of intentionally hard-to-copy discs such as PC and console games.
Philips drives from 24x10x40x and older, and Plextor drives from the 24x10x40x and older, are the most capable of making and burning true image files. The reasons are rather technical, and needn't be gone into in any detail, but in a nutshell- the firmware of most drives is set to generate errors on reading/writing certain types of repeated patterns. The Philips and Plextor drives mentioned above had firmware which would not cause on error when ripping or burning such patterns. Both drive makers have changed their firmware since then, so as to generate errors when ripping/writing such patterns, in order to permit copy-protection schemes which rely upon such patterns to work. The older Philips and Plextor drives, then, are the best burners for both making and burning perfect images of certain types of copy-protected disks. The Plextor 24x10x40 in both ATA and SCSI will burn such images, but it may be that only it will be able to read them back so that they function as though they were original disks. Older Plextors, particularly around the 8X range were thoroughly competent when it came to burning "perfect" copies. The Philips 24x10x40 (and older) drives also burn disks which are treated as originals by most CD-reading hardware. If you have any of these drives you will probably want to hang on to them, as they very well may be the last drives capable of making "perfect" copies.
 

We're not going to go into the reasons for these changes, other than to say that the consumer's right to make a backup copy as a "fair-use" of a purchased disc is a dead issue. No legislature appears willing to support such consumer "rights" any longer.
 

At this time virtually all CD-burners being produced have the same capabilities regarding ripping and burning disk images, which is to say that all can do an adequate job, provided the disk isn't copy-protected.
 

Some new drives ("new" at this writing- November, 2003), notably from Plextor, are capable of a "condensed" form of recording- which puts the "grooves" much closer then normal, and which can burn up to one (1) giga-byte of data onto a standard 80-minute (700 mega-byte) CD. If this catches on, then it can be expected that more manufacturers will produce drives with such capabilities.
 

DVD-Burners:

In DVD burners there is more variety at this time- the field is much newer than with CD's, and there are new and interesting developments occurring all the time. The main types are the "DVD-" and the "DVD+". The "+" is a newer standard which adds more formatting information which is intended to improve the accuracy and reliability of the recording. As of this writing the DVD recording speeds are 4X with the "-" and up to 8X with certain drives using the "+" format, and using 4X DVD+ media. Some drives are capable of dealing with both DVD- and DVD+, and that appears to be the trend for new drives at this time. As with CD's, high-quality media makes a vast difference in the final product.
Given equally-named recording speeds- such as 4X, DVD- will record at 4x9 = 36x150000 bps = 5400000 bps, or 675,000 bytes/second. That is because DVD "X" times have a 1X base of 1,350,000 bps, where CD 1X = 150,000 bps. DVDs then have an "X" that is nine-times as great as CDs. A 4X DVD+ typically has an overall recording speed of 2.4X however, due to the special formatting which must be done for that class of DVD. That would appear to make an 8X DVD+ burn at 4.8X true net or a tad faster than a DVD- at 4X, giving a net recording speed of about 810,000 bytes/second VS 675,000 bytes/second for the DVD- standard. DVD+ media tends to be somewhat more expensive than DVD- media at equal "X"- speeds, also.
 

What was said about CD-burners in re copy-protection holds true for DVD-burners, except that there are no DVD burners capable of defeating copy-protection schemes, including those "multi-mode" burners which can burn CD's as well as both kinds of DVD's.
 

The Media:

As a rule of thumb rewritable CD's are handy for non-images which can be dragged off the original silvers, and which can readily be extracted from the "ISO" posted to UseNet. Images, by and large, should be burned to the quality of media matching your expectations of use for them: I.e. disks which may be used repeatedly- such as audio disks, video disks, game disks, etc., should be burned to the highest-quality media you can get. Don't judge quality solely by price-- "audio" CD's cost more than data CDs merely because of an arrangement with the recording industry to kick-back to them a certain fee per "audio" CD sold. They are otherwise identical to data CDs, and should be avoided as a totally unnecessary expense. A reliable and reputable dealer is an important aid in getting good blanks. Another rule of thumb we have found handy for ensuring data integrity is to burn any media at 8X below its rated speed: i.e. 48X media is burned at a maximum of 40X speed. The difference in the time it takes to burn the disk is negligible, and the difference in the quality of the recording is significant.
 

Buying CD blanks by name tends to be a waste of money, as they have become a commodity product, and the differences are negligible, as a rule. Many "bargain" CD's however, were actually made for export to third-world countries, and are sub-standard. Such CDs are typically manufactured by U.S. companies for sale in South America, et. al. Because of that, "Made in the U.S.A." isn't a thing you want to see on a CD.
 

Mitsumi has an excellent reputation for high-quality blanks, but buying by name-brand is difficult, and at this time not particularly helpful. Buying from a reputable dealer however, while not a guarantee of quality, is the greatest assurance you are likely to get, as they will accept return of a bad batch and will replace them with a minimum of fuss and bother to the consumer.
 

The Software:
 

Before you can burn, or mount, or do much of anything with an image-file you downloaded from UseNet, you typically have to extract it from a compressed archive. Image files posted to the UseNet are almost universally compressed and segmented using WinRAR, available from RARLabs A tutorial on using WinRAR to extract archives is in the WarezFAQ, so won't be repeated here. Extracting disk-images from such archives is the same as with any other type of file-set. Typically images posted to UseNet are BIN/CUE images (a file type created by CDRWin, but now used more-or-less generically for high-quality images.) and can be extracted with a number of programs. The handiest overall tool you will encounter in using/burning image files is Alcohol 120%, as mentioned earlier. This is because it can handle the widest-variety of image-file types of any program extant, and because it also has the ability to "mount" a disk image, be it a CD or DVD image, allowing you to access the contents of that image as though it were a burned disk. For general burning, or creation, or mounting of disk-images, we are only going to recommend the one application, Alcohol.
The main applications used produce different images formats: CIF are EZCD Creator, which can also burn ISOs. NERO which can burn its own proprietary NRG image format as well as ISO and BIN. CDRWin invented the BIN format, and for a long time was the favorite program to burn that type of image . CloneCD was popular, especially for game images, but due to copyright laws that changed in Europe, that company has discontinued making the CloneCD program. CloneCD images however can be burned using Alcohol120%.
 

The NRG file type is used exclusively by NERO. But Alcohol 120% can also burn it, along with virtually all disk image file types, so it will be the only program we recommend that you must have in addition to a general-purpose burning program of your choice.
If you are authoring an image file and are using a tool such as WINISO to modify the contents such as adding a crack directory, then you will probably save it as either an ISO or a BIN image file. Remember that BINs and ISOs are the two most-common formats for disk images, and are also the most widely-supported by burning software. Contrary to popular opinion there is no accuracy advantage to be gained by using a CloneCD image format instead of a BIN disk image format-- as the IMG file produced by CloneCD is in fact, a BIN file by another name. The limiting factor controlling the accuracy of reproduction of the disk image is the hardware, much more than the software.
Popular burning programs and the image files they support.
 

Alcohol 120%:

The proprietary file types for Alcohol are the MDS/ MDF file types. However Alcohol supports most all other image file types, and is, therefore, the program of choice for burning all image files. It also has built-in settings for Video CD images, data images, game disks, etc. which can greatly simplify the image-burning process, especially for non-experts, who can select the defaults for each type.

Nero:

Nero supports its own proprietary NRG file type as well as ISO and the BIN file types.
 

CDRWin:

Goldenhawk's CDRWin supports both ISO and BIN file types. The support file for the BIN file is the CUE file. The CUE file type is pure text, and may be edited with any text editor such as notepad. Note that Fireburner also supports these file types.
 

CloneCD:

CloneCD’s proprietary file type is the IMG file type. This is accompanied by the SUB file and by a CUE file. Note that the IMG file type is functionally identical to the BIN file type— it can even be renamed to BIN and be burned with one of the other programs capable of handling the BIN file type. Elaborate Bytes, the company that made CloneCD, has discontinued this product due to new copyright laws in Europe. The SUB file carries sub-channel data which can be used for copy-protection intended to foil software replication of the CD. As many CD-Rs simply cannot even read that data, it is not a common method of copy-protection. Too many CD-players would simply never even see it, hence would never be able to run the software/program/game, be it a factory-original CD, or home-grown backup copy.
 

DiskJuggler:

DiskJuggler’s proprietary file type is the CDI file type; it also supports the ISO file type.
 

EZCD Creator:

EZCD Creator can support its own proprietary CIF file type, and it can also support the ISO file type. It cannot support the BIN file type, or any other image file type, such as might be created by Nero, Clone CD, or Alcohol 120%.
 

Non-burning tools:
 

WinISO:

WinISO is a shareware application that allows you to open, convert, alter, and even create cd-images. There are other programs that do these tasks too, but WinISO does the basic jobs you, as a downloader from Usenet, will need done, and to keep the size of this FAQ manageable, is all that will be discussed, except for the freeware CDMage..
 

CDMage:

CDMage is a freeware application that allows you to open and read, extract from, and even run files on: most CD-image formats. It can come in very handy when you have a BIN but no CUE, and need to determine the structure of the image in order to write your own CUE (a relatively simple and straight-forward task, with very clear instructions and a examples in the CDRWin help file.)
 

WinRAR:

WinRAR can be used to open an ISO for reading or extracting, but it cannot be used to alter the ISO.
 

Conclusion:
 

Those programs are the most widely-used to work with CD and DVD images, and one or another of them should be able to burn whatever image you download from Usenet. As you can see from the information given above, Alcohol 120% is by far the most competent of the burning programs when it comes to handling many different image types, and is therefore, the most versatile tool you can have for processing disc-images.
Note that with the burning programs, the most common reason for frequent version updates is support for this-or-that new drive. If the program works fine for you then you probably do not need to update it, but check the "what's new" information for the "update", to make sure.
 

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