Question on CD Rom Emulators, device recognition

[jsteph]

Hi,
Can anyone tell me how, at the OS level, a CD is seen as a CD and not a harddrive? This is not for pirating or any such subversive purpose--I just simply copy my install CD's to the HD, which greatly speeds things up when I do major hardware changes and have to reinstall Windows & my apps--or more specifically--when I obey the most common Tech Support 'Fix' of all: "Reinstall it".

But sometimes the install software 'knows' that it's not reading from a physical CD. I see this mostly with my kids' games--I do the same 'copy to hd' thing for them because I'd faint if they could actually keep track of them or not get sticky fingerprints all over them.

Anyway, I have Paragon's CD emulator, and it works very well for most cd's, but some still persist with the 'please put the CD in the drive and hit Retry', or something like that. I guess the question boils down to:

Could it be--in these cases where an Emulator doesn't even work--that either the software is so primative that it 'assumes' D: is the CD drive? Or that it's so advanced that it can detect an emulator? What is the 'signature' of a CD? A registry entry in the Control Set? I thought maybe it was some 'raw data' in a non-standard format, but logically if a software program on a PC can read the data from a CD, then it can read it from a harddrive, too, unless the actual CD drive itself is proprietary (ie, playstation, et al).
Can anyone shine some light on this? Thanks,
--jsteph

 

[viol8ion]

It doesn't have anything to do with the OS differentiating between CD and HD, but is a result of a copy protection scheme on the CD, which is usually some sort of info on a hidden, non-copyable sector or track that is authenticated when you attempt to run the program.

There are all sorts of cracks (do a search on google) for overriding these schemes, althought it is a violation of US federal copyright law to do so, even in the privacy of yourown home, for fair-use personal reasons.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[jsteph]

viol8ion,
Thanks for that. The ironic thing is that I've seen this most often in very cheap (even free) games. I can make a copy of a CD for a $1000 piece of commercial software, and it works off the hard-drive, but a free CD from a box of cereal gives me all sorts of these problems.
-jsteph

 

[viol8ion]

The expensive commercial software often do not come with copy protection schemes since many are designed with multi-user licensing, no need to add protection that would give IS admins a difficult time with remote installs, disc back-up copies, etc.

The "cereal box" software, mainly games and such, are the ones that people will copy and give to friends, resulting in major losses of revenue from the companies that manufacture them.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[jsteph]

Yes, I understand that, but in more than one case the cd was entirely free, this software wasn't even for sale anywhere, it was strictly given away (albiet with plenty of ads along the way during play). All the protection did was make it a pain to run from the hd.

As I had said before, my main purpose is not to pirate, but, in the case of my PC, to speed up reinstalls, etc. And in the case of my kid's pc's...well, they just don't treat cd's with the care they should, and they are always full of sticky fingerprings, scratches, etc. Plus, I build their pc's out of my old parts, so they are usually older CDRoms, which are much slower and often unreliable.
--Jim

 

[Lugubrizione]

Try Alcohol 120%...
You can download a trial version from

http://www.alcohol-software.com

This software emulates most CD's and comes highly recommended.
I had to make an exact copy of my Creative Driver CD (Audigy 2) and it worked like a charm.
Enjoy!

Everyone was a n00b when they started hacking...
There's no such thing as a stupid question - Only stupid answers! But read FAQ's first, eh?