Replicate bad sectors from one disk to another

[masbass]

Hello,
the gym I'm going to is using a managing software that has a certain annoying feat: When installed, it marks a specific sector as bad and every time the program starts it checks if the bad sector is marked and if not it stops operation. This program was written in Clipper, runs on MS DOS and the company that wrote it has gone out of business since 2001 and no one that worked there can be contacted. So, if something happens to the current hard disk (that has been running for 16+ hours every day since 2000) all data is useless as the program won't start up if installed on a new HD that doesn't have that bad sector marked...

What I need is some software that can scan the old HD and tell me how many bad sectors are found + their location and size. I also need an other program that will mark those same locations that were bad sectors on the old disk to the new one so the program thinks it's still in the same HD. I was told this way of file locking was kinda popular back then so I guess the tools they used to do this should ring a bell to someone. Thanks.

[HardDiskBug]

First, The model no. of the drive....

Second, how much the software worth? If you get a copy of the same software (or any other one, who does the similar job for you), how much will you have to pay?

[masbass]

The cost that a local firm gave him to upgrade to a modern win-based software was 1500 euro (1992 USD), and that's a lot of money here in Greece. Especially more if the present software does just what he wants and he's been using it smoothly over all those years. I'll have to open the PC to get the info on the HD.

[masbass]

somehow, I can't edit my last post to add this but oh well.

I just found out that Acronis True Image does just that
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/ ... 82535.html

and for 50$ it sounds like a reasonable price to try, only problem is it doesn't support Win98 and WinMe (system this prog is running is Win98...). I expect it to have a DOS boot mode where all duplicating will take place but it's not clear. Has anyone tried it and can comment? Thanks

[Vulcan]

Hi,

I just found out that Acronis True Image does just that
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/ ... 82535.html

Actually, Acronis True Image is unlikely to do what your program's copy protection needs, to be "fooled" by a new hard disk.

Although there is some BS in that thread which you linked to, most of the contributors are correct in explaining that there is a difference between a genuine unreadable sector (which is probably what that copy protection is looking for); and having Windows report that the filesystem has some bad sectors (which is just some values set in the filesystem).

The point is that if you do a block-by-block clone of the disk (which has one or more genuine unreadable sectors) using Acronis True Image or Ghost etc., then although Windows will still report there being some amount of bad sectors in the filesystem (as marked in the FAT / NTFS metadata), the actual sectors at those locations would be readable on the new disk. Those programs do not create genuine unreadable sectors (although such programs do exist).

and for 50$ it sounds like a reasonable price to try, only problem is it doesn't support Win98 and WinMe (system this prog is running is Win98...). I expect it to have a DOS boot mode where all duplicating will take place but it's not clear. Has anyone tried it and can comment? Thanks

Unless the copy protection scheme is particularly "brain dead", then using True Image / Ghost etc. won't defeat it. To answer your question, True Image (after it has been installed in Windows) allows you to make a bootable CD. So you need to install it on a different machine with a supported OS, make the bootable CD, then you can use that on any PC. But my bet is that this will not work.

Finally, you might be completely genuine, but how do we know that? You might be trying to make lots of copies of this gym software to sell to people...

^-Vulcan-^

[masbass]

I seriously doubt they would create unrecoverable errors on hard disks and finally damage them. I would expect them to have a real simple (maybe even off the shelf) locking solution just to confound any possible pirates, nothing too sophisticated. Anyway, as far as it goes now I'll try True Image first and tell you how it goes.

[pcrecovery]

In the old days, we used to copy-protect many thing with bad sectors especially on outer tracks, etc... interesting they used the technique so recently...

One really unique method of protecting some were to physically alter the medium in a particular location so that when that area of the disk was read repeatedly, the original would give a different value. (think of it as a temperature-sensitive chemical added to surface) When a person would copy the disk, they would/could only write the read value of sector(s) and not re-create the fluctuating/random values in the original.

[masbass]

That's what I was told, that this technique of protecting/locking files was not unheard of and somewhat popular in earlier programmers. The medium was not altered physically as the whole locking thing was implemented with a floppy when their representative came to install the euro currency update (prior to that, their software was not locked in any way) and then they went out of business... The whole thing + updates was installed by simple floppies (have them here) on the spot and no hard drive was given to them to install and then bring it back.

[rchadwick]

If you have the original floppies, have you tried installing the program to a second drive on another machine?

[masbass]

Yes, that's what my brother did when they first tried installing the whole thing on a new computer that the gym owner bought and it wouldn't start if it couldn't find that sector on disk. To be precise, the program started when installed, but if one would add the euro currency update (one that can't be skipped and after this one the locking was implemented) the program wouldn't start anymore as it couldn't find the sector mapped as bad. My brother also noted that there was a specific file in that installation that had some info on that sector, I guess that's where it notes where to look for a bad sector and it must be the first file the program checks when opened. Problem is, it's the main PC where all clients, subscriptions etc are stored so I can't just take the HD here and play around, it's on and used all day... I'll try and clone the HD to an other one as soon as they buy True Image and tell you how it went. One last question: I guess that I can clone this HD to a same or bigger size other HD, or can I also do it with a smaller size one, provided the first one has lots of empty space? For example, if the original drive is 10GB with 2GB used can I clone it to a 4 or 5 GB or should I only try with a 10 GB or bigger? Thanks.