HDD Cloning

[s18dav]

Hi

I have a double twin Battle Gear 3 linked up system for 4 player fun it occurred to me

that it may be worth backing up the game on to a spare hard drive

incase of failure further down the line.

So my question is

1. is this possible

2. how do i start

3.. if its complicated is there an expert out there anyone knows..

I only want to back up the game not sure what piracy laws i encounter here

Thankyou

 

[ZedEx48K]

I guess you have 2 options, the hdd imaging part of mame or commercial software like acronis true image (or that freebie linux based one that I forget the name of).

 

[pobtastic]

I can't say I know for sure specifically about this particular game but usually the best way to clone a hard drive exactly is with the dd command in Unix based systems.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/disk_cloning#Cloning_an_entire_hard_disk

Plus I wouldn't worry about copyright, you're entitled to make a back up of something you already own. That's always been the case.

pobtastic2017-03-15 12:09:16

 

[Brettster]

If these are based on the Taito Type X hardware you may struggle to clone these disks
I know that Battle Gear 4 was based on the unique disk signature but not sure on the BG3
easy enough to find out though.

 

[chunksin]

I can highly recommend Macrium Reflect, free and easy to use: link

 

[tb2000]

I can't remember what he used but Chris who used to work at the St. Ives arcade used a hardware solution that he got from Amazon. I believe it ignored what was actually on the disk as far as any protection goes, just made a 1:1 copy without a PC needing to be connected (as far as I can remember anyway)!

 

[s18dav]

Great stuff

Thank you for the advice i will try some of the above options as soon as one of

the 4 hard drives goes bad i will attempt to copy one of the good ones

Popular method upon googling the subject is as mentioned above to use Linux dd which

seems straight forward..I have read several accounts of windows messing the drives up

but Linux seems to have a good success rate.

Thanks again folks

 

[Brettster]

If it does use some kind of disk signatures it might be best to take a backup of all 4 disks and mark them as such as a backup from another kit might not work
it may also be a good idea to get the spare as the same brand and capacity for good luck

 

[DanP]

Another vote for the dd command. If you have a Mac you can also use "dd" as it's built in there as well. Lot's of examples in the googlesphere to show you how

 

[Fantazia2]

Battle Gear 3 runs on Namco 245/256 Hardware aka PS2.

There is a wiki on Arcade Otaku about the system.

http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/Namco_System_246/256

And this information about the HDDs says that you can straight DD copy them. Its possible that Win32 Disk Imager may work as well.

There are no security measures or serial number checks performed on the drive for any known games, so a simple DD block-level copy to a new ATA drive of sufficient dimensions will suffice. Again, as with optical media, it is customary to find operator cloned media in the used market for drives replaced due to fatigue. Generally, most factory drives will have a sticker with the game code and serial number on the actual drive, but Taito hard drive games notoriously have their part number sticker on the mounting bracket, not the drive.

 

[s18dav]

Thankyou for the info

My local pc guy is going to clone them for me using DD

Thanks

 

[northwest]

I can highly recommend Macrium Reflect, free and easy to use: link

Late for reply, but i also use this . Easy to use and free.

 

[s18dav]

Thanks for the recommendation