So a long time ago, there was some interest in exploring the possibility of dumping DVDs 'raw'. Meaning, scrambled dumps with error detection and correction data along with header information. Some of you may be aware that unlike CDs, drive's don't like to give out data to the user that isn't needed for the typical user, like error correction/detection data. So instead, drives just give you the corrected, 2048 byte user data already processed. This is kind of a problem in some cases as you have to trust that the drive is performing the error correction and detection properly, which occurs either at the firmware level or at the DSP level. Having the ability to look at the raw data has some advantages, but it's limited to how much control the drive gives to the user, which isn't a lot. Currently we're exploring using the raw information provided by various DVD drives for trying to get as much data from the disc as possible. Since DVD drives traditionally don't like to give you any sector data unless it's 100% 'correct', for bad or hard to read discs it leaves a lot on the table. Luckily, most drives out there have support for the READ BUFF SCSI command which can help spill some unintended data to the user on request. If you get the parameters just right, you can get the data that was read by the drive before it's returned to the user. Since we know what a raw DVD sector consists of, we can easily find the right parameters needed for the command to find the right combination that returns the data we want. However, there's a catch. Because READ BUFF is implemented at the firmware level, despite every drive having some level of support for the command, the command varies from vendor to vendor, drive to drive. So one combination of parameters might not necessarily return the data you want in one drive even if it worked on another drive model. The second issue is that drives will store only what's necessary for the drive's firmware itself to perform what it needs to do on the data that's read from the disc. As such, some drives return variable, but somewhat fixed/standard data sizes per sector. So even if the data is found using READ BUFF, you need to determine how much data is returned per sector that's stored. Sometimes 2366 bytes with some padding are stored, sometimes 2064, etc. Sometimes data can be returned already unscrambled, sometimes data can be stored scrambled but with only error detection data. Sometimes you get everything. It's a mess. Luckily, we can bruteforce the READ BUFF command and figure out what will give us the expected data. There was a tool written in the past that used to do just this, however the source was never released and doesn't seem to work correctly. It also doesn't take into account the various other memory dumping commands that exist as well, like F1 and E7. That's where you come in. We have a lot of drives already, but not everything. We would like to create a database and keep track of drives that return raw DVD sector data onto the cache and the SCSI command parameter combo that gives you the data, along with what's actually contained within that data. We made a super streamlined version of the program that you can run on Windows machine that will take care of everything for you. Here's how it works. 1.) Get a DVD, preferably something on Redump.org, and put it in a DVD drive you'd like to test. The disc must be a standard DVD, no Xbox, GC, Wii, etc! A normal PC game on a DVD, or maybe a DVD Video disc should be okay. 2.) Run the program. The program will ask which drive letter contains the disc to use. 3.) The program will then perform some tests for feature capabilities, and then will begin bruteforcing parameters for various memory dumping commands. The program uses an embedded python script with calls to sg3 tools to issue various SCSI commands to the target drive while the media is inserted. 4.) It may take a while, but when it's done, it will generate an "uploadme.zip" containing memory dump fragments and a log file. Upload the uploadme.zip file here! 5.) I'll look at the dump and I'll add it to the table below. Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ … li=1#gid=0 Source code: https://github.com/hiddenpalaceorg/DVDRawBruteforce Grab the tool here: https://github.com/hiddenpalaceorg/DVDR … e/releases If you guys have any questions feel free to post here. Hopefully the zip files it generates doesn't take up a lot of space, as hopefully you can add the attachments here. But feel free to use another upload site if it becomes too big... NOTE: if during execution the program takes way too long, feel free to kill it and just upload what it generated. Since it's bruteforcing many combinations of values it could take at least an hour or two depending on how well the drive works. NOTE2: Even if it doesn't look like it's doing anything while it scans for values of 3C, it's working. So don't kill it right away. It will only print when data is returned by the drive using the SCSI command, not for when the command passes/fails. EDIT: Program requires cygwin be installed but should have the .dlls needed to use it standalone. Let me know if there are any issues. If you were having issues before and didn't say anything, grab the zip and try it again.
Would older drives be more likely to return what you're looking for, or is it the opposite? Because the fact that this requires a recent Windows and a Python 3 installation limits what this can be used on.
Sky's the limit, any drive can potentially leak the data into a dumpable part of cache. A lot of people use IDE/SATA adapters for older drives so OS limitations aren't a problem. I think I tried making a native linux version but got stuck with how sg_raw looks for devices. Can this program work with wine or in a VM for linux users?
It would probably run on my older Windows 7 32-bit PC, but it won't on my Windows 95 PC that has a DVD drive from 2003. I wonder if it's not too hard to convert to C. I've got some experience with the Windows API, but not with CD-ROM reading.
I'm interested in messing with this but I should note that the disc drive I use most of the time (a BU40N) has had its firmware modified so that MakeMKV can dump 4K discs with it.
This is just my grandmabrain at work, but does there exist a tool that takes extremely high photographs of a DVD and analyzes the pits and lands to see what's on the disc without the obsfucation layer of a drive? I recall a similar thing existing for Laserdisc.
