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Back-up CD Extra CDs

Question: I would like to copy a CD which has several audio tracks followed by one data track. The length reported by MakeCD for the last audio track is too large and MakeCD fails when trying to read it. What can be done about this?

Answer: The disc in question is a so called "CD Extra". This CDs have two sessions: The audio tracks are part of the first session and the data track is "hidden" from CD players in the second one.

MakeCD is not able to write two session in one go right now, so you have to fiddle a bit to get a correct copy. You might also use DAO and allow MakeCD to pad the last audio tracks with zero as soon as the error requester pops up, but this way all tracks end up in one session. Make sure your CD player and filesystem can handle this!

The other way to copy it is by writing the first session so that it has the correct length and the data track can be written to the second session without changing its startblock. Setup and write like this:

This has been tested, but no guarantee can be given that the block numbers given above are suitable for all drives! In this case MakeCD will issue a warning that the data track should not be written to the disc because the start block does not match. Then you might retry with a new disc and change the length of the audio track so that it matches this time (MakeCD tells you the difference in warning requester), or you could remaster the data track: mount a filesystem on the source disc, select it as source for ISO image creation and write this to the second session. This won't give you an exact copy, but all the files will be copied and unless different ISO options were used, the copy should be as good as the source.


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