Alcohol 120% 2.1.1 Build 2201

Alcohol 120% is a Windows program from Alcohol Soft for backing up CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs as image files. It can write those images back to recordable media and run them from virtual drives. You must buy Alcohol 120% after a trial period. Alcohol 52%, offered as a free edition, keeps the imaging and virtual drive functions but leaves out every recording feature.

Reading a disc into an image

The Image Making Wizard reads a disc in a physical drive and saves it as a single image on the hard drive. You choose the drive and a read speed, which starts at the drive’s maximum. For CDs you also pick a datatype. A datatype works as a preset. Choosing the profile that matches a disc type or copy protection adjusts the reading options to suit that kind of disc. If the disc type is unknown, the Data-Type Analyzer scans it and reports which datatype to select.

Reading options control how Alcohol 120% handles difficult areas:

• Skip reading errors continues past sectors that cannot be read because of scratches or dust.
• Fast skip error blocks with Advanced Sector Scanning jumps over large runs of bad sectors instead of retrying each one.
• Read sub-channel data captures the extra data that some special CD formats keep outside the main tracks.
• Data Position Measurement records irregular data placement used by certain protections so it can be reproduced when the image is mounted.

The image takes the disc label as its default name. Alcohol saves it in its own Media Descriptor format (MDS) unless you choose another.

Which format fits the disc

For mounting and burning, the program also opens images from CloneCD, CDRWIN, BlindWrite, DiscJuggler, Nero and other disc tools.

Virtual drives and mounting

Alcohol 120% can create from one to 31 virtual drives. Windows treats each one as an ordinary optical drive, so a mounted image behaves like an inserted disc. You mount an image by selecting it in the main window’s image list. With the matching option enabled, you can also double-click it to load it into the first free virtual drive.

You can give each image its own hotkey, so you can switch discs in a game spread across several discs without closing it. A command-line launcher handles mounting and unmounting from scripts.

Emulating protected discs

Some games check that they run from an original pressed disc. The emulation settings answer those checks. “Ignore Media Type” hides that a backup is on recordable media. RMPS emulation reproduces physical disc information that cannot be burned. Extra options emulate bad sectors, sub-channel data and LaserLock when no exact copy is available. A companion utility, A.C.I.D., hides Alcohol’s virtual drives from SecuROM and SafeDisc detection. Alcohol 120% cannot back up DVDs protected with CSS.

Burning, copying and erasing

These functions are exclusive to Alcohol 120%. The Image Burning Wizard writes an image to a blank disc. You select the recorder, writing speed, number of copies and datatype. You can run a simulation first to catch failures without wasting a disc. You can save a log of each recording process.

The Copy Wizard handles disc-to-disc duplication in one task. With two drives it can copy on the fly; otherwise it reads the source into a temporary MDS image and then burns it. The Erase Wizard clears CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM discs. It can quickly erase only the table of contents or completely format the whole disc.

Creating images from your own files

The Xtra Wizard builds a new disc image from files and folders on the computer rather than from an existing disc. You add items or drag them in from Explorer, and a size indicator shows how much space the compilation needs. The wizard saves the result as ISO or MDS, ready to mount in a virtual drive or burn with the Image Burning Wizard.

Drive information and network sharing

The CD/DVD Manager reports what each drive can read and write, lists the tracks on an inserted disc and opens a Sector Viewer for inspecting individual tracks. The Image Finder searches chosen folders and devices for image files.

Alcohol 120% includes an iSCSI server that shares a drive with other computers on the network. You can use a shared recorder to burn discs from another machine as if it were local. A share can be read-only, read and write, or reserved for one client. Other computers connect with standard iSCSI client software.

Alcohol 120% compared with Alcohol 52%