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How to Make an Image of a Copy Protected CD

There are a number of different copy protections that media distributors use to protect their digital content. This copy protection can be a hassle for regular users to work around, making it difficult to make backup copies of your audio or game CDs. Furthermore, CDs can easily be destroyed, lost, or scratched, so you may want to make digital copies in the form of a disk image that can later be used, without the CD present, to run your applications. While circumventing copy protection is difficult when creating images, it is possible with a few commercial software packages.

Instructions

Alcohol 120%
- 1
  Download and install the Alcohol 120% trial from the Alcohol-soft Web site (see Resources). Before closing your Web browser, navigate to 120Search and find out what the data type is for your copy-protected CD (see Resources).
- 2
  Insert your copy protected CD into your CD or DVD drive. Launch Alcohol 120% from your "Programs" menu. Select your CD or DVD drive from the "CD/DVD Device" drop-down menu. Select the appropriate data type from the "Datatype" drop-down menu in the lower-left hand corner of the Alcohol 120% window. Click "Next" to continue.
- 3
  Select the folder to save your image to and the image's name. Select the image type from the "Image Format" drop-down menu. Click "Start" to rip the image to your hard disk. Click "Finish" once Alcohol 120% has finished making the image.
CloneCD
- 4
  Download and install CloneCD from SlySoft's Web site (see Resources). Insert your copy-protected CD into your computer's CD or DVD drive. Launch the CloneCD application from your "Programs" menu.
- 5
  Click the image that looks like a CD with a pair of glasses next to it to begin. Select your CD or DVD drive from the list. Select a CD profile from the profiles list. This will change depending on what you are making an image of, whether it be a PlayStation, PC, or other kind of disk.
- 6
  Click "Next," then type in a name for your image file. CloneCD creates .ccd image files since it copies in a RAW format, unlike other image creators. Click "Next" again to have CloneCD create your disk image.

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