I have recently purchased Microsoft Train Simulator. I have made a copy of its 1st disk (which needs to be present in the CD drive when playing the game) using Nero 5.5 (copying from CD to hard disk first and then burning CD from hard disk).

However, the game doesn't run with my copied CD. It only runs with the original CD.

When I tried to do a CD-to-CD copy using Nero, it says that there is an error in the source (original) CD.

So, my question is, are they using any sort of copy protection technique? If yes, what sort of? I heard that in game CDs, often manufacturers deliberately create bad sectors in CD so that it can't be copied.

Is there any way to really copy the CD? I searched over the net and some people suggest that it may be possible using Alcohol 120% program which creates a virtual drive on harddisk with CD's image.

Any help?

Thanx

[PS: Please don't start discussing about legal issues of copying. If my original disk goes corrupt somehow (which is not so uncommon in todays CDs), I don't want to spend again purchasing another version.]