Looking for utility to block access to CD-Drive

Hi everyone. I posted this question on another forum, but no one there seems to know how to help. I was hoping perhaps you'd be able to help me find what I need.
Anyway, here's my question:

I'm looking for a utility that will allow me to block access to my CD-ROM drive. I don't want to just prevent the disc from ejecting, though, but rather prevent programs from accessing it and reading the CD completely; i.e.: I want them to think there isn't even a drive there.

Disabling it in Windows doesn't seem to block access for all programs, and nothing I do in the Bios has any results. So, I'd appreciate if anyone could point me to an appropriate utility or tell me some other way to do this.

Thanks for any help.

 

You could use Winboost, http://www.majorgeeks.com/download112.html Which, among many other things, allows you to hide selected drives.

 

Thanks, but what I'm looking for is a utility that actually blocks access to the drive completely.
You see, I have this annoying program with the bad habit of reading from my CD-Rom drive; I want to block it from accessing the drive. I'm not even sure if there is a program that will allow me to do this; that's why I'm asking here.

Again, any way to block this program from accessing my CD-Rom drive, short of physically disconnecting the drive, will be most appreciated.

 

Welcome to MG. Not sure if this will help you, or is what you are after, but is it worthwhile to create a virtual drive on your hard drive as let the program access it from there? If so, try Virtual Drive creator from http://tinyurl.com/5cdr7

Tell us what program you are using and maybe someone can come up with the cure.
Is there a later version of the program that may have cured this "feature"? Bazza

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If ya cant find program.
Install a switch on your power cable, then you could turn power on and off at will, No power = No read.

 

Thanks bigbazza. I have a virtual CD installed, but for different reasons. Unfortunately, a virtual CD can't solve my problem.

The program is StarForce, an extremely annoying form of copy protection. I just don't want to wait these couple of minutes it can take to verify my CD each time I start the game. It's all completely legal mind you, not warez or anything - in case you're worried.
Anyway, the problem is that this program works on the driver level; it installs hidden drivers on your system, so even if I disable the drive in Device Manager, the CD check just goes ahead and reads my CD as if nothing ever happened.

Like I said, I can go around this by physically unplugging the drive, but that can't be very good for my hardware. (Besides being a hassle, of course.)
I was hoping perhaps there's some program that works on a low enough level to block StarForce access to the drive. Otherwise, maybe someone knows some setting in Windows or something I could change to make this pesky thing stop reading my CD.

Thanks ASUS. I thought about this, but I have no idea how one would go about installing something like this. Is this sold as a ready-made adapter I could plug on to the end of the power cable?

 

It sounds like even if you found a way to stop StarForce from reading the CD drive, that you may make the program incapable of running because it couldn't verify that the disc is real, right?

 

No, no. You see, there is a way to emulate the disk signature with a virtual CD. Since it's on the hard drive, and since it's only the signature -- without the actual data -- the CD verification takes no more than a few seconds.
The problem is, unless I can completely block StarForce from accessing the CD drive, it will try to verify from the CD drive directly rather than from the virtual CD. This, of course, means back to the disk-destroying several minute CD verification.

Now, I can make it verify the virtual CD instead by physically unplugging the drive. What I'm looking for is a way to achieve this with a software solution or an easy hardware fix (such as an easy to install power switch, if such a thing exists).

By the way: just wanted to say thanks for all the help so far. You guys (and girls, if there are any) are a great bunch!

 

Sorry airbot, no other suggestions from me. Is there a game forum that can help. Can google find a solution? Maybe you're just stuck with that "feature" as it looks like it's gotta find the CD no matter what you try. unless someone has come up with a patch. Me, I stick with Freecell as it's about my limit. More than once I have had 49 cards out in one hit, though. Don't think it is possible to get more than that. Bazza

 

No problem bigbazza. Thanks for your help anyway.
I honestly don't know where to ask such a thing. I don't think the developers would appreciate this discussion on their forums, and I can't imagine what kind of forum this question would fit.
As for Google, it has failed me so far; if it hadn't, I wouldn't be bothering you with this nonsense.

The funny thing is, it seems some people are able to do this in the Bios (different mobo, no doubt), and for some even simply disabling the drive in Windows is enough! Guess I'm the unlucky one ... as always.

Good copy protection though I guess; the game's been out for a few months now and there's still no crack.

 

Bump?

Heh... By the time I figure out how to do this properly, I'd have long ago finished the game.

 

One last hopeful bump before I give up.

 

Do you know of anyone else playing this game? How do they get around the problem? Do you know if the game will even run if you are able to bypass the CD access? Bazza

PS: ASUS ,can you provide info on installing a cutout switch for AirBot. Bazza
One last thought. Can you get your BIOS to ignore the CD for the time you are playing the game. I mean select to boot from hard drive only, not to look to see if there is a CD installed. Reading back, I guess you've already tried this. Ignore me , I'll keep on taking tha tablets. Baz
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Well probably by having their CD in the drive.
But seriously, like I said - for some people it seems to be enough to just disable the drive in Windows, and others do it in the Bios. (I guess it's an OS/Mobo thing.)
There are a few who have the right drives and media to be able to make a good-enough backup copy of the CD so it passes the test. Then again, this one doesn't really help me much since I'd still have to wait for the damned copy protection to check the CD.

Like I said, the game is running without the disc in the drive; it's just that my drive currently has to be disconnected for this to work. (Strangely enough, I haven't found any compelling reason to reconnect the drive for quite a while now. Weird, huh? )

Like I said, I couldn't find any way to disable the drive in the Bios so that Windows won't recognize it anymore. Then again, it's quite likely that I'm just an idiot , so if anyone can tell me how to do it in my Bios it would be great. I have an Asus A7N8X (non-Deluxe) mobo.

BTW: Thanks for trying to help so much!

 

Airbot, I'm outta here. I'm gonna stick to Freecell. Bazza

 

I've been thinking about this one for a little while. Is it possible the game always looks for the 'lowest' CD drive (ie: choose D: before E:, etc)? You say you have a regular CD drive, and a virtual drive as well. Is the regular CD drive the lower letter? If so, when you unplug it & restart, does the virtual drive then move down to that letter? If it doesn't move down, it might be worth a try to delete it as well, so that you have no CD drives at all. Then reboot & re-create the virtual drive, so it'll be the lowest letter by default, then plug in your regular CD drive & see what happens. If it becomes the higher letter, maybe the game will ignore it? You may need to put it on the secondary IDE cable, as opposed to piggy-backing off the primary HD cable, if it dosn't work the first time. Let us know how it goes.

 

Wavetar - I don't think it's anything that simple. I tried every letter combination I could think of. I even tried disabling the drive in Windows and putting the virtual drive on the same drive letter the physical one used to be; it just finds my physical drive anyway and reads off of that.

bigbazza - Can't say that I blame you . Thanks for all the help, and good luck with Freecell.

I think I'm gonna start a new thread asking how to disable the drive in the Bios. Maybe someone can tell me what damned button I have to press to do this.

 

Boot the machine and go into the setup. Then check the boot order of the drives to see what it is set to. Reset the boot sequence to C: only.

Then check the installed drives and see if the CD is there. If so, change the setting to NONE.

You might also want to set the highest drive letter setting to a letter lower than the CD drive. Usually it is set to Z: .

Good luck.

 

Airbot, one last thought along the same lines as jimpeel, but he beat me to it. How about setting your physical CD drive to "Z" using lastdrive=Z command. Then virtual drive will have a drive letter less than "Z". Might work. Maybe easier than installing/uninstalling virtual and physical drives as posted earlier. Bazza

PS: I use lastdrive =z for my CD drive as I am able to swop different hard drives into the second hard drive space on my laptop without stuffing up the CD drive number when I do. Baz

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