From: kr-lund@nogarbage.online.no   
      
   Chris Young wrote:   
   > I have a few program disks that are not on Ira's site, that I would like to   
   > backup onto 3.5" floppy disks, but they are password protected. Is there a   
   > way to get around that? Was there a TRS-80 copy program that could rip copy   
   > protected disks?   
   If you search for 'clone' on Ira's site there are several hits for   
   I/III. Searching for 'copy' yields lots of candidates.   
      
   Anyway: It depends a bit on your DOS, the one doing the copying.   
   DOSPLUS' BACKUP does a clean rip and I think the QFB does the job on   
   LDOS, just remember to writeprotect the original (to keep it original).   
   If it is TRSDOS 1.3 disk you are copying they are incompatible so you   
   need to use TRSDOS 1.3 to copy them, I have done that too but can't   
   remember exactly how.   
      
   Sometimes there is an override password; for LDOS use RS0LT0FF (I don't   
   remember if this works with disk master passwords) note those are zeros   
   no oohs.   
      
   There are also patches for the copy applications to disable the password   
   checking (I haven't collected those). Very often the password is just   
   PASSWORD too.   
      
   Then there is the brute force attack, you normally won't find the real   
   password but it will find one that works. But for that you will have to   
   read the first sector of DIR/SYS where bytes CE and CF contains the 16   
   bit hashed password. I would use DOSPLUS, use DISKZAP or DISKDUMP to   
   read the sector, note the hash code and run this through the password   
   program, then use BACKUP to make a clone.   
      
   The password protection is just too weak, it is more used for protection   
   against accidental wrong access, this is why it is often PASSWORD.   
      
   --   
   Knut   
   (delete 'nogarbage.' for email)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)