Making Sony Playstation Disc Backups As you can read above, this page has information about making backups. But you won't be left with additional questions after you're finished here. Everything is explained, step-by- step. No more, "So, what format should I burn the CD in?" or, "How should I copy the tracks?" Nope, this 'FAQ' will leave no questions unanswered.BIG COMMON QUESTION: "Does this mean that I can now make an EXACT copy of my Playstation games?" NO. You still need to either 1) use the swap method, or 2) get your Playstation modded. A good mod chip is the PSX Activator 2 from The Colorful You.Note: If you stick a Playstation game into your Mac, and you check out the contents of the disc, yes, you may see a bunch of folders. My advice, don't look at the contents like that 'cuz it will only make you wonder, "Huh, what is all of this and how do I keep them in order and why does CD-Copy only show one data track?" Honestly, I have no idea why it shows up like that. And, no, it won't work trying to copy all the folders you see onto your hard drive and then burning them onto a CDR.Anyway, onto what to do: PART ONE ASTARTE CD-COPY 1. Grab the 2.0 beta from their website (www.astarte.de) just to make sure we're on the same program here. The demo will work until September 30th, 1997 1a. Make sure you meet all the requirements of the program 2. Start up CD-Copy 3. Put your game in and let the program read all the tracks (1 or more) 4. If you see an error message (i.e. something like "Your backup will be 2 sectors longer than the original), I wouldn't try copying it. I got a few of those errors and I haven't tried copying any of those games so I have no idea what may happen. You can try those later if you want, but don't say I told you they would work 5. Select/highlight all the tracks that you see. If your data track has a menu arrow on the left side (the one's that you can flip to show the contents of a folder or something), don't flip it; leave it alone. Make sure you get all the tracks 6. With CD-Copy 1.x, you had to select 'One track' or 'Multiple tracks' when saving; you don't have to worry about that anymore with CD-Copy 2.0b. Before saving, I usually make a new folder to put all the tracks in. Save the tracks into the new folder 7. Don't mosh around while your tracks are being read. In other words, make sure the CD reader isn't jarred while reading the tracks :) 8. When all the tracks are done being copied, check for any errors that CD-Copy might have spit out. If everything looks fine, quit out of the program and your game will be ejected automatically also 9. Check in the folder with the tracks. Make sure that all the tracks are there and that you have one data track that looks like a piece of paper with a mini CD on it and the word ISO in a block. The audio tracks will look like pieces of paper as their icons. You can also check that the folder size is roughly the same size in megs as the game 10. You are completely done with the CD-Copy part Making sure everything is working efficiently: 1. I don't want to go through all the networking situations and RAM conflicts and so forth so it's best to just start up your CD-burner now and restart your Mac with only the extensions it needs to burn the CDR 2. Try not to daisy chain your CD-burner if possible PART TWO ADAPTEC TOAST 3.5 1. If you have Toast 3.5, we're on the same page. If not, try to get a hold of it, otherwise I can't guarantee these steps that you should take. If you have 3.5, just follow these instructions and you're on your way to making as many backups as you want 2. Start up Toast 3. Stick in your CDR material to be burned 3a. Although I've never had any problems with any of my CDR material, I'll just say what everybody else says and say this, "Don't use cheap CDR material." (Whatever) 4. Don't worry about the burning format since Toast will choose "Disc Image" for you anyway. But if you're still paranoid, you can choose ISO 9660 for the format in the Format menu (I know I do sometimes :) ) 5. Open up the folder with all the tracks. Drag and drop the data track image/icon onto the Toast window. Notice that the description of the window is "Disc Image" and it gives information on how many megs the track is. If you don't have audio tracks, skip to step 9. Otherwise, keep going 6. If you have audio tracks, go to the Format menu and select 'Audio tracks' at the bottom of the menu. The Toast window will scroll to the right and will now include a button for audio 7. Drag and drop all of the audio track images/icons onto the Toast window. Notice that Toast will give you information on how many audio tracks there are and how long all of them are 8. Click on the 'Audio' button to open up the audio window. Make sure all the audio tracks are in order. If they are not in order, drag and drop them into order. Once done, click 'Done' 9. Now we have our data set, and our audio set and we can rest easy that all of _our_ work is done. It's now up to the CD burner 10. Click 'Write CD...' 11. Since I have no idea how fast your computer is, set the write speed to whatever you want with the knowledge that the faster you write the more problems and skips you may have. For the first burn, maybe want to set the write speed to 1x (especially if your hard drive is fragmented). This is just so you don't set it to 4x or 6x, and then when your CD burner chokes and messes up your backup you don't think I gave you bogus instructions. I assure you that I've done dozens of backups this way and ALL of them have worked 12. Click 'Write disc...' and then, again, no moshing. And a rule that I follow, rather paranoidally, is don't use the blender, don't use your hairdryer, etc, etc, because you don't want any power surges 13. When the copying is done, a window will prompt you that your CD is done and gives you an Eject button. Eject the disc and you're all finished ___________________________________________________________ This is as detailed as I can get. I mean, some of the names may be wrong, like if I wrote that a menu says "Audio tracks..." but all it really says is "Audio", but it's the same thing; use common sense when descrepancies arise. Legalese: This information is to be used for backup purposes only. You are not to use this information to make copies of games you do not own.