SafeDisc/disc-drive problems

[fallenangle]

I've wanted to play Uru-Complete Chronicles for years and now I have a laptop possibly within specs for the game I thought to give it a try. What I wasn't expecting was the trouble I've had: I can't even install the game.

Initially the game would spin up but apart from the D Drive showing it identified as UruCC the drive just stops dead. I downloaded a MS SafeDisc driver update I found and that clearly had an effect. The the UruCC Setup.exe window appeared but it was blank. I left it for 5 minutes but nothing was happening and I could hear the disc drive stuck in an endless loop.

Research eventualy led me to the cause of the likely cause of the problem - the anti-piracy SafeDisc (v.3.1 I believe) system the game employs. The game does warn you in the small print on the back that "This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and virtual drives." What it doesn't warn you is how common this "conflict" is.

There is a list of 8 disc drives with known issues on the Ubisoft web site but there are reports of trouble with several other elsewhere and it should be remembered it's a 7 year old game so there's no information about more recent disc drives.

The advice given is simply not use a CD rewriter of any sort, just use a ROM drive. Well that's not a lot of help now as DVD/CD rewriters are universal. I suppose I could buy an external USB CD ROM drive but I'm loathe to spend even the small the relatively small amount money as there's no guarantee it will work and I have no use for it otherwise.

So I'm looking for technical advice or a practical solution about how to proceed from here. For instance does anyone know of an external USB or replacement (laptop IDE) DVD/CD drive (ROM or RW) that doesn't conflict with SafeDisc? Is there an alternative (legal) software solution?

[speedlolita]

You own the software, just download it.

[monel]

Or you could try Alcohol 120% or similar software to make an image emulating the copy protection and then mount it on a virtual drive.

It's worth a try, at least.

[fallenangle]

You own the software, just download it.

Wish I could but I'm on dial-up and the download time for the 1.5GB game file could be measured in days.

I thought about ripping the disc - CloneCD seems to be mentioned on several sites I've found but many have reported problems with the game refusing to recognise even the original disc which is apparently still required to launch the game.

Guess I'll have to do some more research.

[speedlolita]

You can always grab a noCD EXE which removes the need for disc checking.

Ripping the disc would be a good idea, but I'd imagine you'd get the same fault as installing normally surely?

[fallenangle]

You can always grab a noCD EXE which removes the need for disc checking.

Ripping the disc would be a good idea, but I'd imagine you'd get the same fault as installing normally surely?

I've not looked into this too deeply but I believe the method suggested uses some other software tool to disable the SafeDisc protection at some point in the process. I assume the idea is that you then install it using a virtual disc drive.

But, as I understand it, you still need the original disc to launch the game and apparently people have found that doesn't work. I'm not even sure I can rip the game using my disc drive anyway.

Thanks for the suggestion about the no CD disc checking EXE - I'm totally new to this sort of thing and never heard of that possibility so it's something else to look into.

[monel]

You can always grab a noCD EXE which removes the need for disc checking.

Ripping the disc would be a good idea, but I'd imagine you'd get the same fault as installing normally surely?

I only suggested using an image as the original post mentioned not using CD-R drives. It's worth a shot. Alcohol is a pretty nifty app at times. If it doesn't work one of the other imaging apps is likely to work.

[fallenangle]

Well I've tried some things to get it to install but still no luck.

I even bought an external USB DVD/CD ROM drive which I later discovered I'd need a powered USB hub for it to work properly on my laptop. So all that extra expense and no still joy It did allow me to explore the disc though which my built in disc drive didn't so it's an improvement of sorts. But it still sticks on the blank Uru set-up window and the new drive can be heard going into an an endless loop trying to load.

Looks like some sort of softawre/copying solution is the only way left to go now.