Copying Playstation Games with DAO
from Goldenhawk
The first step of copying the disc is to copy the CD to your hard drive using the SNAPSHOT program, part of the DAO package. The command line is: SNAPSHOT PSX.CUE PSX.RAW /ID=0:n:0 /SUBCODE=AUTO, where n is the SCSI ID of your CD-ROM. Keep in mind that these files can take up to 600 megabytes of space or more since you are copying from a CD, although most games do not take a full CD. Some games may be even larger than 600 megs, since SNAPSHOT stores audio in WAV format which takes up a large amount of space.
The files copied to your hard drive by SNAPSHOT must then be burned to a blank CD using the DAO executable file. The command line is: DAO PSX.CUE /ID=0:n:0, where n is the SCSI ID of your CD recorder. A full CD takes between 45 and 60 minutes to burn on a double spin recorder, so it may be wise to let the CD copy while you don't need to use the computer.
DAO is very picky with dirty or scratched discs, it helps to use a good CD to copy from, or either set the reading speed to 1x or try to clean the disc.
Create a Batch file for SNAPSHOT, or download the above file, which correctly out lines the name of the raw and cue images , and any special parameters that DAO/SNAPSHOT may use for your CD-R recorder.
Some CD recorders need special commands to correctly set DAO/SNAPSHOT for using the recorder.
DAO has text files you must read to correctly match commands for the recorder you intend to use. SNAPSHOT.TXT has special tips for recording Sony Discs.
If you have trouble with DAO, and you have the resources to use CDRWIN, by all means use CDRWIN. It is much more intuitive and less prone to error.