dinorefurb-disc-archiver

Every copy command shows this notice and refuses to run until you accept it (--accept-personal-use on the command line, a tick box in the window). Every output folder gets a PERSONAL-ARCHIVE-ONLY.txt with the same text.

What it does

It reads a disc with an established dumping program, then writes the copy in the formats you choose, from the most complete to the ones people most often have. It reads each format back and compares it with the dump, so a restoration can test its fingerprinting and asset import against every form a player's copy may come in, and know that each of them holds the same disc.

Reading the disc (--backend):

auto (the default) works down that list:

1. redumper, if it is installed, in the download's tools/ folder, or already downloaded;
2. otherwise the pinned redumper release, downloaded from GitHub. The window asks first; the command downloads unless given --no-download;
3. if the download is declined or fails, cdrdao, if it is installed;
4. otherwise the data track copy, which reads no audio. The log says so, and a disc profile that expects audio tracks reports the mismatch.

Asking for --backend redumper downloads it the same way, but fails rather than falling back. The backend's own files (redumper's .scram, .subcode, .toc and .log, for example) are kept unchanged in the archival folder.

Downloading redumper

The release to download is pinned in src/dinorefurb_disc_archiver/redumper.json: a tag and the SHA-256 of each platform's zip. A download is used only when its SHA-256 matches the pin; any other download is refused. It is unpacked, unmodified, into your own data folder under its tag, so a new pin downloads its own copy, and the copies of earlier tags there are removed once it is in place:

DISC_ARCHIVER_HOME moves that folder. disc-archiver install-redumper downloads it ahead of time, and disc-archiver tools says whether it is there. Downloading redumper is the archiver's only use of the network.

Writing the copy (--format, repeat for several):

Every cue sheet the archiver writes (bincue-split, bincue and the iso-* sheets) is UTF-8 with CRLF at the end of every line, the last included, as Redump's cue sheets are. The same disc gives the same cue bytes on Windows, macOS and Linux, so a bincue-split sheet can match a Redump DAT's cue entry wherever it was written. redumper's own .cue in archival is left as redumper wrote it, which is CRLF on Windows and LF elsewhere.

--format all writes every format that can be made. --format recommended, the default, writes what the disc profile recommends.

Programs are found on PATH, or through DISC_ARCHIVER_REDUMPER, DISC_ARCHIVER_CDRDAO, DISC_ARCHIVER_TOC2CUE, DISC_ARCHIVER_CHDMAN and DISC_ARCHIVER_FFMPEG. A format whose program is missing is skipped and reported; the others are still written.

Install

Download (no Python needed)

Download the zip for your computer from the toolkit's releases and unpack it anywhere:

Each holds the window and the command, ready to run:

disc-archiver-<version>-windows-x64/
  Disc Archiver.exe          the window: double-click it
  disc-archiver.exe          the command, for a terminal
  tools/                     put chdman or ffmpeg here if you want those formats
  README.txt
  PERSONAL-ARCHIVE-ONLY.txt

On macOS the window is Disc Archiver.app, and on Linux disc-archiver-gui. The builds are not code-signed yet: on Windows choose More info and Run anyway if SmartScreen stops it; on macOS right-click the app and choose Open, or allow it under System Settings > Privacy & Security.

redumper is downloaded the first time you copy a disc (see Downloading redumper). Programs placed in tools/ (or tools/<name>/bin/) beside the executables are found first, so a redumper you downloaded yourself, chdman or ffmpeg can be dropped in there too.

With Python

For development, scripts and people who already have Python 3.12 or later. The window needs Tk, which the python.org installers for Windows and macOS include (on Debian and Ubuntu, install python3-tk).

pipx install dinorefurb-disc-archiver     # or: uv tool install dinorefurb-disc-archiver

This installs the same disc-archiver command and disc-archiver-gui window. redumper is downloaded on first use in the same way, or install it yourself and put it on PATH (or set DISC_ARCHIVER_REDUMPER).

Use it

The window

Double-click Disc Archiver (or run disc-archiver-gui). To start with a restoration's disc profile selected:

"Disc Archiver.exe" --profile path\to\disc-profile.json     # the download, on Windows
disc-archiver-gui --profile path/to/disc-profile.json         # installed with Python

Tick the notice, choose the drive (or an image you already made), the game's profile and the folder, and press Make the copy. The formats the profile recommends are ticked already. Redump DAT, under the folder, takes a DAT you downloaded, as --dat does.

The command

Everything the window does, the command does too, for scripts and for people who prefer a terminal. In the download it is disc-archiver.exe (Windows) or ./disc-archiver; installed with Python it is disc-archiver.

disc-archiver --help                                     # commands; disc-archiver <command> --help for options
disc-archiver tools                                      # backends, programs and drives found
disc-archiver install-redumper                           # download the pinned redumper now
disc-archiver rip --drive E: --output "D:\Discs\My Game" --name "My Game" \
    --profile disc-profile.json --accept-personal-use
disc-archiver rip --drive /dev/sr0 --output ~/discs/game --format all --accept-personal-use
disc-archiver convert --input "My Game.cue" --output ~/discs/game --format iso --format files \
    --accept-personal-use                                # formats from a copy you already have
disc-archiver rip --drive E: --backend cdrdao --read-offset 6 --output out --accept-personal-use
disc-archiver check --input "My Game.cue" --profile disc-profile.json
disc-archiver check --input "Other copy.cue" --manifest "D:\Discs\My Game\rip-manifest.json"
disc-archiver check --input "My Game.cue" --dat redump-pc.zip     # against a Redump DAT
disc-archiver formats                                    # every format, most complete first
disc-archiver notice                                     # the personal-use notice

convert and check read .cue (one or several BIN files, ISO-plus-WAVE sheets), .iso, .ccd and .chd (through chdman). rip passes --backend-arg values on to the backend program, for example --backend-arg=--retries=20 for redumper, and --no-download keeps it from downloading redumper. rip --read-offset <samples> corrects a cdrdao dump's audio by the drive's read offset; it needs --backend cdrdao and is refused with any other backend, since redumper corrects the offset itself. check prints the copy's fingerprint as JSON, with the profile's checks and, given --manifest, the comparison described in Checking a copy against a manifest. Progress goes to standard error and the summary to standard output.

Exit codes: 0 done and verified, 1 failed, 2 usage error or notice not accepted, 3 a profile check failed, a written format differs from its source, a copy given to check is not identified as its manifest's disc, or the Redump comparison is mismatched.

Comparing with a Redump DAT

--dat <file> on rip, convert and check compares the copy with a DAT you downloaded yourself from redump.org: the .dat file, or the .zip the site serves holding one .dat. The archiver never downloads a DAT. rip and convert also write bincue-split, the layout Redump lists, and compare its files; check compares the .cue it is given and the track files it names. check refuses other inputs, and a cue sheet of another layout (several tracks in one file, an ISO or WAVE file, a pregap no file holds), whose files could not match the DAT's. The comparison and its outcome are in the manifest's redump (in check's output, its redump).

Each track file is matched with a DAT file by size, CRC32, MD5 and SHA-1, all four agreeing; file names are reported separately. The outcome is:

A DAT is read only when it is UTF-8 Logiqx XML of at most 128 MiB, every file lists a decimal size and well-formed CRC32, MD5 and SHA-1, and it uses no entities. The DTD a document type declaration names is never loaded. A DAT that breaks one of these rules is refused before the disc is read.

On Windows, if redumper cannot open the drive, start the window or the terminal as administrator. On Linux, add yourself to the group that owns the drive (often cdrom).

Building the download

cd packages/disc-archiver
python -m pip install . -r packaging/requirements.txt
python packaging/build_bundle.py --out dist      # --no-gui-smoke without a display

It builds for the platform it runs on with PyInstaller and starts both executables before zipping them. --with-redumper also carries the pinned redumper in tools/redumper/ with its GPL-3.0 licence, checked the same way as a download, for a zip that works offline. CI builds all three platforms on every pull request and attaches them to each release.

The output folder

My Game/
  PERSONAL-ARCHIVE-ONLY.txt
  rip-manifest.json
  archival/      the backend's dump, as it wrote it (rip only)
    offset-corrected/   the cdrdao dump with its audio corrected (rip with --read-offset only)
  bincue/        My Game.cue, My Game.bin, PERSONAL-ARCHIVE-ONLY.txt
  iso/           My Game.iso, PERSONAL-ARCHIVE-ONLY.txt
  files/         My Game/ (the disc's files), PERSONAL-ARCHIVE-ONLY.txt
  game-dir/      CD/ (the disc's files and trackNN.cdda), PERSONAL-ARCHIVE-ONLY.txt

rip-manifest.json records:

• disc: the layout, the volume identifier (each byte read as the Latin-1 character of the same value without the trailing spaces and NULs, as the .NET OriginalContentSource.Label reads it, or null when it is all padding), each track's start, pregap and length, the hashes of the data track's user data from INDEX 01, and the hashes of each audio track's raw 2,352-byte sectors from INDEX 01 to the next track's INDEX 00, or to the lead-out for the last track, with no header. Each audio entry gives that range as first and stop, disc LBAs with track 1's INDEX 01 at 0, and audioRange says it in words. It is the range the toolkit's CueBinSheet.TrackExtent gives and CddaWave and CddaTrackFingerprints read, and the bytes of the track's .cdda file in game-dir. Every content hash is given as SHA-256 (sha256, nonDataSha256) and as XXH3-128 (xxh3, nonDataXxh3), the hash the documentation standard uses: 32 lower-case hex digits in canonical byte order, as xxhsum -H2 prints it. These hashes are the same whichever format holds the disc, so they are what restorations' fingerprints and the formats are compared by. CD-ROM XA masters leave empty form 2 sectors on MODE2 data tracks as padding and postgaps: mode 2 sectors whose two subheader copies agree and set the form 2 bit, with all 2,324 data bytes zero (the EDC is not checked). Wherever such a sector sits on the track, it adds 2,048 zero bytes to the data hash, the block a MODE1 image of the disc and an ISO hold there and the bytes the toolkit's OriginalContentSource.OpenVolume reads for it. data.emptyForm2Sectors lists those sectors as [first, stop) ranges counted from INDEX 01 ([] when there are none), since no ISO keeps the fact that they were form 2. A form 2 sector with any nonzero data byte, and a mode 2 sector of either form whose two subheader copies differ, holds no user data. A file whose extent covers an empty form 2 sector is not read: the files and game-dir formats, or a profile that lists expected paths (whose check reads the files), stops the run with its sector number before any format is written. A raw data track can run on past the ISO 9660 volume its primary volume descriptor declares, and some discs hold sectors there with no user data: no sync pattern, another mode, a form 2 sector that carries data, or subheader copies that differ. data.nonDataSectors lists those sectors as [first, stop) ranges counted from INDEX 01, and data.nonDataSha256 and data.nonDataXxh3 hash their raw 2,352 bytes in order ([] and null when there are none). They add nothing to data.sha256. Inside the declared volume, or on a track with no volume descriptor (or one whose logical block size is not 2,048 bytes), a sector without user data stops the run with its sector number. When files or game-dir is requested and a file's extent reaches one of the listed sectors, the run stops with its sector number before any format is written. The declared size is an address, resolved as Data tracks after audio describes; a track whose file system cannot be located admits no sector past its volume. The addresses stored in the sector headers are not checked.
• disc.audio: for each audio track, besides sha256:
  • fingerprint: what the toolkit's .NET CddaTrackFingerprint holds, with the same field names, so a restoration can copy it into its own records: track, samples (from INDEX 01 to the next track's INDEX 00), toleranceSamples, anchorOffset, anchorSamples, and anchorXxh3 and centralXxh3, the XXH3-128 of the anchor's samples and of the track's samples from toleranceSamples to samples - toleranceSamples. A sample is 4 bytes, one 16-bit stereo pair, as drive offsets are counted. The anchor is 5,880 samples (ten sectors) or the track's samples less twice the tolerance, if fewer, placed at the first of nine places, the middle of the track first, where its samples do not repeat within twice the tolerance. The .NET fingerprint takes tracks 2 to 99, so an audio CD's first track cannot be carried over.
  • fingerprintProblem: null when the fingerprint was recorded. Otherwise fingerprint is null and this gives a reason and a detail: ambiguous (the anchor repeats within twice the tolerance at every place tried, as in silence or a short loop), short (the track is too short for an anchor inside the tolerance), unread (samples the dump did not read lie inside the central samples) or unreadable (the samples around the anchor are not held as raw samples).
  • unreadSamples: [first, stop) sample ranges, counted from INDEX 01 and negative inside the pregap, that the dump holds as zero fill because no read reached them (see Read offsets). [] when every sample was read.
• source: where the disc came from. For a drive, the backend and dump, the cue sheet the formats were written from. readOffsetCorrected says whether the audio was corrected by the drive's read offset and readOffset gives the offset applied. For redumper both come from its log: the offset its configuration: line shows, or false and null when redumper warned that its database has no offset for the drive and no --backend-arg=--drive-read-offset=<offset> was given, since it then reads with offset 0. Both are null when the log does not say. cdrdao is corrected with --read-offset, recording the value given, and false and null without it. Both are null for an image (whose offset the archiver cannot know) or the data track copy (which reads no audio).
• profile.checks: each expectation of the profile and what the disc showed.
• outputs: each format's files, with size, CRC32, MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 (the hashes disc databases such as Redump list, which --dat compares) and XXH3-128 (xxh3), what the format leaves out or generates (notes), for game-dir the listing of its files, and its verification:
  • matched: everything the source holds was compared and agreed.
  • partial: everything compared agreed, and notCompared lists what the format does not hold or could not be compared: audio left out of an ISO, lossy Ogg audio, sound in a pregap that ISO-plus-audio formats drop, which sectors were empty form 2 sectors (an ISO holds them as zero blocks, and its notes name them).
  • mismatched: differences says what differs.
• unavailable: formats that could not be made from this source, and why. A plain ISO has no raw sectors, so no BIN/CUE, CloneCD or CHD can be made from it. A data track with sectors that hold no user data has no ISO form, so the ISO formats are unavailable for it; BIN/CUE, CloneCD and CHD keep those sectors and compare them byte for byte.
• redump: null without --dat. Otherwise the DAT's file name (dat), the outcome (status, see Comparing with a Redump DAT), the game the track files match best (game, null when none), each file of the bincue-split copy with its kind (cueSheet or track), whether it matched and the DAT's name for it (datName), the files whose name differs from the DAT's (nameDifferences), and what differed (differences).

The formats the archiver writes are compared with the source sample for sample: each is written from the same samples, and none of them moves the audio.

The GAME_DIR layout

The documentation standard lays out a build's files in GAME_DIR/<build ID>/, with the files a game reads from its disc under CD (CD2 and so on for a later disc). game-dir writes that CD directory for one disc, ready to copy into GAME_DIR/<build ID>/:

• CD/<path> for each file of the first data track. Names come from the disc's primary ISO 9660 volume, as a build entry names a file read from its CD (the standard's ENTRY-TYPES-11), not from Joliet: the version suffix is dropped, so SETUP.EXE;1 becomes CD/SETUP.EXE, as is a dot that ends a name with no extension. A name that would then be the same as another file's or a directory's beside it is kept in full (INSTALL.;1 beside the directory INSTALL). Each file gets the date the volume records.
• CD/trackNN.cdda for each audio track, with its two-digit number from the table of contents: the track's raw 2,352-byte sectors from INDEX 01 to the next track's INDEX 00, or to the lead-out for the last track, with no header. This is the range of the manifest's audio hashes, and the range CueBinSheet.TrackExtent gives in LegacyFormats. The pregap is left out.

The output's listing in the manifest gives each file as a build entry's manifest lists it, to copy into the restoration's build entry:

[
  { "path": "CD:SETUP.EXE", "size": 48128, "xxh3": "..." },
  { "path": "CD:track02", "format": "cdda", "size": 31752000, "xxh3": "..." }
]

Each xxh3 is what xxhsum -H2 prints for the file. The run reads every written file back and compares its path, size, SHA-256 and XXH3-128 with the source's files and audio hashes, and the listing with the written files. Sound in a pregap, which the layout does not hold, is listed as not compared. A disc file or directory at the root named like a track file (TRACK02.CDDA) makes the format unavailable, since the two would share a name.

Read offsets

A drive reads audio a fixed number of samples early or late: its read offset. The archiver counts it as redumper and AccurateRip's drive list do, so the same value means the same thing in both: a drive with an offset of +N returns at each position the sample N samples earlier on the disc. redumper corrects it. cdrdao does not, and neither do many player rips (ImgBurn, Alcohol, older cdrdao, EAC set up without the offset), so their audio sits N samples later than in a corrected dump and its sha256 differs in every track. The disc's data track is addressed by its sector headers and is not moved.

rip --backend cdrdao --read-offset <N> corrects the dump. The archiver keeps cdrdao's files in archival unchanged and writes archival/offset-corrected/, the same sheet and image with each corrected sample taken N samples later in the dump; the formats are written from it. Each run of consecutive audio tracks, pregaps included, is one stream on the disc, so samples move across the boundaries between those tracks. At the end of a run for a positive offset, or its start for a negative one, the corrected samples lie where the drive did not read (the lead-out, or the data track before the run). Those are written as zeros and listed in the track's unreadSamples, and the log names them. A check never counts them as matching content. Find the offset for your drive in AccurateRip's drive offset list. Without --read-offset, the log says the cdrdao audio is uncorrected. Values beyond 5,880 samples are refused, and so is a dump that is not one file of raw sectors.

Checking a copy against a manifest

disc-archiver check --input <copy> --manifest rip-manifest.json says whether a copy, from this archiver or any other tool, holds the manifest's disc. The data track's user data must match the manifest's exactly. The track list must have the same number of tracks with audio in the same places. Each audio track of the manifest gets a status in the manifest.audio list of the JSON report:

manifest.identified is true, and the exit code 0, when the data track and the track list match and every audio track is matched or matched-shifted. Otherwise the exit code is 3.

The tolerance is 3,528 samples (six sectors, 80 ms) in either direction. Drive read offsets in AccurateRip's list run from about -1,500 to +1,700 samples, so it covers an uncorrected rip from any of those drives against a corrected dump, and two uncorrected rips from drives at opposite ends of that range (about 3,200 samples apart). The .NET fingerprint accepts up to 5,880. The check follows CddaTrackFingerprints.VerifyAsync step for step: the length, then the anchor at every shift within the tolerance, then the central samples at the one shift found.

Data tracks after audio

A CD-Extra (Enhanced CD) disc holds its audio in a first session and its data track in a second. That track's ISO 9660 volume is usually mastered with addresses counted from the start of the disc, while a volume on a disc's first track counts from the track. The archiver reads the primary volume descriptor at sector 16 of the track and tries each place the addresses can count from:

• the track's first sector;
• the track's LBA with the disc's tracks laid out back to back from LBA 0, as the archiver reads every image;
• for raw sectors, the LBA the header of sector 16 gives. A cue sheet lays the sessions out back to back without the lead-out and lead-in between them, and so does a CloneCD image, so on a CD-Extra dump this is the place that fits.

A place fits when the root directory extent the descriptor gives lands inside the track and the volume, past the volume descriptors, on a directory whose . record gives that same extent. Every address the file system gives, its file extents and declared volume size included, is read against the one place that fits. When none fits, or more than one does, the archiver does not choose: files is unavailable with the reason, a profile's expectedPaths stop the run, and the fingerprint admits no sector past the volume. An ISO-plus-cue copy of a CD-Extra disc made by another tool keeps no sector headers, so unless its sheet places the track where it sits on the disc its files cannot be located.

Disc profiles

A restoration describes its disc in a profile file (schema) and keeps it in its own repository. The file is UTF-8, with or without one leading byte order mark (which Windows PowerShell 5.1 writes for -Encoding utf8); a file starting with a UTF-16 or UTF-32 byte order mark or with more than one UTF-8 mark, or bytes that are not UTF-8, are refused with the cause named:

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kibertoad/refurbished-dinosaurs-toolkit/main/schemas/disc-profile.schema.json",
  "profile": 1,
  "title": "Example Game, English retail CD-ROM",
  "restoration": "example-game-restored",
  "layout": "mixed-mode",
  "volumeIdentifier": "EXAMPLE",
  "audioTracks": 11,
  "expectedPaths": ["DATA"],
  "recommendedFormats": ["bincue"],
  "notes": "Shown in the window under the profile."
}

layout is data-only (one ISO 9660 track) or mixed-mode (a data track followed by CD audio). recommendedFormats are the formats the restoration's importer reads, and are ticked by default. Any expectation the profile leaves out is not checked. The built-in profiles are any, data-only and mixed-mode; without a recommendation a data-only disc gets iso and anything else gets bincue, which keeps the audio. A copy with no raw sectors falls back to iso.

Python

from pathlib import Path

from dinorefurb_disc_archiver import derive, fingerprint, load_profile, open_source

with open_source(Path("game.cue"), Path("work"), print) as disc:
    print(fingerprint(disc))
    derive(disc, Path("out"), "game", ["bincue", "iso"], load_profile("mixed-mode"), print, {})

The supported imports are the names in dinorefurb_disc_archiver.__all__.

Limits

• Sessions are not kept. A cue sheet's REM SESSION lines are ignored, so a multisession disc's tracks are laid out back to back without the gap between sessions, in the manifest's track starts and in the BIN/CUE, CloneCD and CHD written from it. A cue sheet's first track must start at INDEX 01 00:00:00; POSTGAP, MODE2/2336, CDG and MOTOROLA files are refused.
• Cue sheets are limited to 1 MiB and 99 tracks, profiles to 64 KiB, file systems to 200,000 files.
• data-copy stops at the first sector that still fails after five reads. Nothing stands in for an unread sector.
• The CloneCD subchannel is generated, not read: it carries no copy-protection marks. Use the redumper dump in archival when they matter.
• Drives are listed on Windows and Linux. On macOS, give --drive as redumper names it.