Plextor PX-W4012S (SCSI)

In this part of our SCSI PlexWriter review we’ll start testing the reading and writing of copy-protected data discs. Copy-protections are used on pretty much every game nowadays so it’s important a writer can handle the various protections out there. For the tests we used the latest CloneCD version 4.2.0.2 from Elaborate Bytes . As you might know (if you’ve read our CloneCD v4.0 preview ), CloneCD uses Profiles for each type of disc. In this review we created a separate Profile for each protection with the common settings used in the old CloneCD versions. E.g. for SafeDisc we only selected the ‘Fast Error Skip’ setting.

As an extra ’service’ or help you can download the Profiles we have used in this review. Click on the Profile images to download the used Profile. Store these files in your CloneCD/Profiles folder on your hard disk. Alternatively you can view and download all used Profiles from our CloneCD forum , by clicking here.

Let’s start by giving you a screenshot of the supported drive capabilities of the Plextor drive with CloneCD v4.2.0.2:

As you can see in the picture above, the Plextor PX-W4012S is fully supported by CloneCD (DAO-RAW96, which means the drive can write uncorrected data and SubChannel Data). In the table below we’ve summed up all of our results and after the table we will clarify our results:

LaserLock:

For the LaserLock test we use a game called ‘Desperados’ protected with LaserLock. As a comparison we read from both the original disc and from a back-up (CD-Recordable) disc since there can be quite a difference in read times, as you can also see from our achieved results. While the original disc was read in about 48 minutes, the back-up was read in only 15 minutes. Although these read times might seem slow, this is actually not such a bad result.

SafeDisc:

To test the SafeDisc protection we used a game called ‘Beavis and Butthead: BungHole in One’. The SafeDisc protection is a very old protection but it uses a lot of errors on the first 5% of the disc which can make reading the disc take a really long time. This is luckily not the case with the SCSI PlexWriter. As expected (Plextor writers are known to be very fast ‘error skippers’), the disc was read in only 2 minutes and 29 seconds, only one second behind our fastest reader, the Plextor PX-W4824A.

SafeDisc 2:

For our next tests we used a game called ‘The Sims: House Party’ protected with SafeDisc version 2.10.030. As expected the disc was again read very fast in only 2 minutes and 13 seconds. To test the Plextor PX-W4012S’ ability to write this protection we wrote the image with ‘ weak sectors ‘ (formerly known as AWS) set to ignore. The created back-up disc was then tested in the following drives:

As expected the Plextor drive had no problems creating a fully working back-up of this SafeDisc 2 protection. Now let’s try again with an improved version of this copy-protection:

SafeDisc 2.51:

Besides our SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests we need to take a look at the newer SafeDisc 2 versions. For these tests we used two games: ‘Serious Sam 2: The Second Encounter’ protected with SafeDisc v2.51.021 and ‘Mafia: The City Of Lost Heaven’ protected with SafeDisc v2.70.030.

We read the image with the Plextor PX-W4012S drive using the same ‘SafeDisc (2) [no AWS]‘ Profile as for our normal SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests. The ‘ Hide CDR Media ‘ option was enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW drives. The results when playing from the following drives:

As you can see from the list above the created back-ups didn’t play from all drives. As expected both back-ups failed in the picky Toshiba DVD-ROM. Next we re-wrote the same image file but now with the ‘weak sectors’ set to amplify using the ‘SafeDisc 2(.51) [AWS]‘ Profile. The ‘Hide CDR Media’ option was again enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW drives. The results when playing from the following drives:

When the ‘weak sectors’ were amplified the Plextor PX-W4012S created a perfect back-up which played in all drives we tested, even from the picky Toshiba DVD-ROM.

SafeDisc 2.80:

More SafeDisc tests? Yes we also need to take a look at the latest SafeDisc 2 version, 2.80. This is another improved version of this copy-protection and is the hardest one to beat. For the SafeDisc 2.80 test we used a game called ‘Grand Prix 4′ protected with SafeDisc v2.80.010 (after applying the official patch, version 9.6). For our SafeDisc 2.80 tests we used the same copy method as for our other SafeDisc 2 tests. In the table below you can see the achieved results:

Although the SafeDisc v2.80 protection is the hardest version to beat, the Plextor PX-W4012S had no problems creating a fully working back-up when the weak sectors were amplified. The same result as we saw with the other SafeDisc 2 versions.

SecuRom *NEW*:

The next protected data tests we did was with a game called ‘Neverwinter Nights’ protected with a newer version of SecuRom (v4.76.00.0051). Note that we didn’t apply the official game patch for this title since with this patch no back-up works. We read the third disc of the game (play disc) in 8 minutes and 12 seconds. The Plextor PX-W4012S was limited to about 8x reading when extracting the SubChannel Data, the same performance as we saw with the Plextor PX-W4012A drive. We tested the created back-up disc in several drives and the game started every time. Note that when playing from a CD-RW drive you have to enable CloneCD’s ‘Hide CDR Media’ option.

PlayStation/LibCrypt:

When reading the black PlayStation disc the Plextor drive was again limited to about 8x reading, resulting in a read time of minutes and seconds. Not a too bad result considering that at this lower read speed you can be sure the extracted SubChannel Data is reliable.