Securom & Hardware Changes

[Chippy]

Need some advice if possible folks,

 

 

  I changed a video card on my PC recently and continued War For Cybertron, Securom then disabled my DVD drive.  So I formatted the harddrive on another PC, re-installed it physically in the original PC and formatted again with a fresh installation of WIN7.  Everything fine - DVD now working with all types of DVD.

 

So I have two systems - an XP one not connected to the internet and also a WIN7 system that is.  I then decided to play Jade Empire on the WIN7 PC (the one Securom initially targetted) and it gave me the 'no disc detected' crap again.

 

Conclusion:  (Yes I would like to hire HK-47 for a certain metbag company) Securom is also on Jade Empire, and their servers stored data from a playthrough a few months ago, and decided this installation was illegal because of the video card change on the WIN7 PC. 

 

Query:  Do I install Jade Empire on the XP PC (no internet) and hope for the best, or frizby it onto the "sell it oneday on Ebay" shelf?.

[Walsingham]

Holy crap. Does securom do things like that often?

 

I mean I avoid it if possible already. But if it does that sort of thing then it can just f*** off. I'm just not buying any games with it ever.

[syn2083]

That sounds terrible terrible terrible..

 

I havent run into any real issues with securom stuff i did have in the past however this FAQ has some decent ways to fix a lot of the things you are talking about when it breaks. Most of it is duplicated in win7 so it should be able to fix that as well, beyond that if you install it on a system that wont change, and have nothing like poweriso or the like installed it should be ok.

 

http://secusphere.com/smf/index.php?topic=6.0

[Drowsy Emperor]

Just download the pirated version for crying out loud. You already have the game, no harm done.

[Humanoid]

Yes, there are, err, some locales on the interwebs where you can, ahem, trade-in your refusenik executables for operational ones.

 

Lucky the drive still works, as it's difficult to download a new DVD drive.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Humanoid

[Drowsy Emperor]

I had problems too with my copy of Jade Empire. The game ran markedly slower on my older PC because it read from the bloody DVD constantly. Sometimes it wouldn't recognize the disc either.

 

...Securom POS

 

None of that with the people's edition of JE though.

[Chippy]

Thanks for the replies folks, the link from syn2083 was informative to the point where I might have sussed it - least likely at top:

 

DVD drive died in between all the crap I'm about to detail.

Above server theory (really doubt that).

Securom detected that I installed Jade Empire from an external hard drive and then tried to play with the disc inserted, and didn't like it.

 

Most likely:

I've been playing KOTOR1+2, sometimes I'd close the game and hear the DVD drive running at high speed; this sounds like what is detailed in Message 0 in the above link, I say that as my DVD drive has since died completley and will not read anything - I even formatted WIN7 again with another DVD drive as primary boot and the effected drive last, in the hopes that a newly configured windows would take it out of PIO mode or fix it in some way.  But here it lies, dead.

 

So that's the theory I'm going with - KOTOR2 is 4 or 5 discs to install, easier to just direct the installation to the external hard drive, Securom was already present from KOTOR1 and decided I was a pirate.

 

I thought I was safe with Steam games, but the meatbags are sticking Securom on those titles aswell.  It's taken me about a day to sort this all out because I couldn't believe a piece of software could destroy a piece of hardware like this.  Lesson learned though.

 

Edit: Using Windows 7 updated fully, Kapersky (it wasn't that) and the DVD drive is a Super Writemaster Speed Plus. Also external drive was 1TB Western Digital with all games backed up ... hope I'm wrong about this theory now because it'll reall f**** that up...   

Edited July 12, 2013 by Chippy

[syn2083]

If it is actually stuck in PIO are you able to see that through device manager?

 

The following walkthrough is for hard drives but applies equally to any device in PIO mode: http://techlogon.com/2011/03/28/how-to-fix-hard-drive-stuck-in-pio-mode/

 

If it is a PIO issue this should be able to tell us, and if so steps to 'force' it into DMA, seems to work for quite a few people so i hope this does the trick. If not it could be the worst coincidence of all time and just that the DVD drive is actually dying/broken. 

 

Not sure what the money situation is but good externals and internals are really cheap these days. Got a great usb3 DVD RW drive thats external not long ago for ~19$

[greylord]

Jade Empire has SecuRom?  I have Jade Empire, the Special Edition.  I don't recall any internet junk with it going on.  Are there different versions of Jade Empire that they sold, some with Securom and others without it?

[Gorth]

Maybe the Steam versions of these oldies differ from their original optical media versions? Wouldn't make much sense trying to tinker with hardware settings on Direct Download software.

[Nepenthe]

Jade Empire has SecuRom?  I have Jade Empire, the Special Edition.  I don't recall any internet junk with it going on.  Are there different versions of Jade Empire that they sold, some with Securom and others without it?

 

Securom has different iterations, IIRC bg2 had an early form of Securom.

[anubite]

I'm pretty sure it's perfectly legal to download a crack that kills the SecuRom? You do own the game, unlike a pirate. You could just do that, plenty of people have modified the executable. I mean, GoG has made most of its DRM-free titles such by actually taking scene releases.

 

I hope I'm not saying anything aginst the forum rules by suggesting it, but I'm not aware of it being a bad practice, if DRM is screwing you over, you have every right to remove that crap.

Edited July 16, 2013 by anubite

[syn2083]

It's basically never legally sound to suggest that a crack is legal unless there is specific evidence holding it up for the specific item in question. When you buy a piece of software, or a movie, etc you do not own the actual content/media. You may possess the physical item that holds the software or movie or item, but beyond that all you have is a license to view/use/display.

 

Copyright/Intellectual Property law gets incredibly complex, let alone adding in EULAs which in the case of most software are implicit on install/use and there could be a lot of stuff in there.

 

http://lifehacker.com/5888488/how-youre-breaking-the-law-every-day-and-what-you-can-do-about-it

 

That does a pretty good job of explaining, but by and large, no its not legal to crack or download a cracked/hacked game even if you actually 'own' a disc containing the game.

 

The difference between Joe Schmoe cracking an EXE and GoG is that GoG got permission as a company to do so, and shares sales with the company in question.

[Nepenthe]

Of course, in some places, you actually do own the game because the local supreme court's taken a look at the baloney you're supposed to agree (after you've made your purchase, with no right to return it if you don't) and gone "**** it, this makes no sense, it's just like buying a banana, anyway".

[syn2083]

True enough, be sure to check you local laws! Better safe than sorry

[Chippy]

If it is actually stuck in PIO are you able to see that through device manager?

 

The following walkthrough is for hard drives but applies equally to any device in PIO mode: http://techlogon.com/2011/03/28/how-to-fix-hard-drive-stuck-in-pio-mode/

 

If it is a PIO issue this should be able to tell us, and if so steps to 'force' it into DMA, seems to work for quite a few people so i hope this does the trick. If not it could be the worst coincidence of all time and just that the DVD drive is actually dying/broken. 

 

Not sure what the money situation is but good externals and internals are really cheap these days. Got a great usb3 DVD RW drive thats external not long ago for ~19$

 

Took me a while to get around to this... no, interestingly it isn't.  The DVD drive is now in my XP PC and can read normal CD's, I've checked all IDE channel's and they're each reporting DMA mode.  So I can't say for certain that Securom is responsible because the exact conditions most experience are not being met, I'm going to lean towards it though as I first started having trouble after the video card change, and with the Securom 'no disc in drive' warning.

 

As mentioned - it would have to be a pretty amazing coincidence.  I suppose the way to go is to have all games backed up on CD/DVD, and the library of games permanently on a large enough hard/secondary drive.  In the event of hardware failure, I think I'll format > reinstall, and repeat.  Thanks for input though, learned alot there.

 

List of Securom on Games: http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/content.php/19-SecuROM-7-List

Edited July 17, 2013 by Chippy

[syn2083]

Well hopefully it helps at least point you in the right direction. Its possible that securom unintentionally helped 'break' it. Weirder things have happened, like the first tech job i had where the vibrations from the computer would actually unseat video cards leading to 'dead like' systems. Sometimes freak stuff happens.

 

I would say if issues/the issue follows the drive itself then that would be a decent indication, if its attached to a 'virgin' system and is still not working then there shouldn't be any registry keys or the like recording it as 'violated' or the like. So if you have an ancillary system or a friends or something and its still not working right... regardless of the initiating cause it sounds like the drive itself has lost the battle.