Freecom FC-1 - Page 4

- Reading Tests

We created an image of various protected titles to the hard disk, using Alcohol v.1.4.8.with the appropriate settings, according to the protection type of the inserted discs. Below are summarized the capabilities of the Freecom FC-1 drive as presented by the CloneCD program.

The game titles used and their respective protection schemes are illustrated in the following table :

Game Title	Protection Scheme
PSX "NBA Jam Extreme"	Lybcrypt
Serious Sam The Second Encounter v1.07	SafeDisc v.2.60.052
VRally II	SecuROM v.2

Lybcrypt

The Freecom FC-1 was the fastest, among the drives when it came to creating an image of the PSX game disc. The drive ripped the disc contents at 1922.66 sectors/sec, a result that is more than 50% higher than the other two drives.

SafeDisc v.2

Ripping the contents of Safedisc v2 protected disc is not the strongpoint of the Freecom drive. It was about one third the speed of the Plextor.

SecuROM

For the SecuROM protected game disc the Freecom drive returned the highest transfer rate.

- Writing Tests

The Freecom drive supports the DAO-RAW writing mode. For checking the drive's EFM correction status, we used 3 different game titles with different SafeDisc 2 versions and the latest software patches installed. After creating images of the various titles to the hard disk, we burned them (maximum speed) with Alcohol 120%. Two different discs were created for each title; one with the "Bypass EFM error" enabled and one with the function disabled.

In the table below can be seen whether the produced backups were working (game installed / played normally), or not.

Drive	Game Title	SD2 Build	Settings
			Bypass EFM error Off	Bypass EFM error On
Freecom FC-1	Max Payne	v2.51.020	Yes	Yes
	Serious Sam - The Second Encounter v1.07	v.2.60.052	Yes	Yes
	The Sims Unleased	v.2.8	Yes	Yes
	The Sims Superstar	v2.9	Yes	Yes

At the end of the writing tests we can see that the Freecom FC-1 was able to make working backups of all protection schemes, even Safedisc v2.9, which is quite rare. Under both settings, Amplify weak sectors on and off, the drive made working backups. The working backups were playable even in old CD players such as the Teac CD-540E and Creative 5233E.