DVD protection problem...

[Tapsa78]

Hi all.

I recently bought the Silver edition of HOMM5. I'm a long time fan of the series, and thought this was a good time to get into this game, as I had heard good things about it.

After the joy of unwrapping the game from its box, reality kicked me hard on the face, as my DVD drive didn't recognize the disk. The DVD didn't even spin up, the drive just kept making noises that sounded like it was trying to figure out what is this odd disk that it was given...

After a lot of swearing, cursing and troubleshooting, I came to the conclusion that the copy protection on the DVD must be the cause of the problem. My drive reads movie DVD's just fine, and it accepted my old Thief 3 DVD without a problem. During my troubleshooting I tried cleaning the drive with a vacuum cleaner, and I also updated the firmware on my drive (Which is a Lite-ON SOHW-823s DVD-writer). To my horror, I also found out that my drive no longer accepted my Civ4 DVD, which worked fine just 6 months ago...

Luckily, my laptop's DVD drive accepted the disk. I don't want to play the game on my laptop, but this gave me access to an alternate solution.

So here's what I did. I used my laptop to create ISO images of the DVDs, and transferred them to my desktop. I then used the images with Daemon Tools to install the game and the expansion. I knew that the game wouldn't accept those images, but I also know that every game gets a crack before the game hits the stores... So after a little searching I found a way to play the game.

So whats the point of all this? I just wanted to tell my story. I wanted to show how these copy protections are just a problem for legimate users who actually bought the game, and that anyone with a Internet connection can get the game and a crack for it on the Internet.

This is likely the last Ubisoft game that I'll be buying. I don't like being treated like a criminal just because I have a DVD burner.

For the last several months, I've been playing Galactic Civilizations 2. A marvelous game with NO COPY PROTECTION. I hope that in the future more companies will realize the futilty of copy protection schemes and do what Stardock has done: Distribute their games without any copy protection.

I've read several other posts on this forum from people with similar problems. I hope that someone at Ubisoft is listening to all this. Now if someone can actually help me to get my DVD drive to read the disks that would be great. But I guess there is no way other than to buy another DVD drive that is not a DVD writer...


Thank you for allowing me to vent my feelings and tell my story.

[Tapsa78]

Hi all.

I recently bought the Silver edition of HOMM5. I'm a long time fan of the series, and thought this was a good time to get into this game, as I had heard good things about it.

After the joy of unwrapping the game from its box, reality kicked me hard on the face, as my DVD drive didn't recognize the disk. The DVD didn't even spin up, the drive just kept making noises that sounded like it was trying to figure out what is this odd disk that it was given...

After a lot of swearing, cursing and troubleshooting, I came to the conclusion that the copy protection on the DVD must be the cause of the problem. My drive reads movie DVD's just fine, and it accepted my old Thief 3 DVD without a problem. During my troubleshooting I tried cleaning the drive with a vacuum cleaner, and I also updated the firmware on my drive (Which is a Lite-ON SOHW-823s DVD-writer). To my horror, I also found out that my drive no longer accepted my Civ4 DVD, which worked fine just 6 months ago...

Luckily, my laptop's DVD drive accepted the disk. I don't want to play the game on my laptop, but this gave me access to an alternate solution.

So here's what I did. I used my laptop to create ISO images of the DVDs, and transferred them to my desktop. I then used the images with Daemon Tools to install the game and the expansion. I knew that the game wouldn't accept those images, but I also know that every game gets a crack before the game hits the stores... So after a little searching I found a way to play the game.

So whats the point of all this? I just wanted to tell my story. I wanted to show how these copy protections are just a problem for legimate users who actually bought the game, and that anyone with a Internet connection can get the game and a crack for it on the Internet.

This is likely the last Ubisoft game that I'll be buying. I don't like being treated like a criminal just because I have a DVD burner.

For the last several months, I've been playing Galactic Civilizations 2. A marvelous game with NO COPY PROTECTION. I hope that in the future more companies will realize the futilty of copy protection schemes and do what Stardock has done: Distribute their games without any copy protection.

I've read several other posts on this forum from people with similar problems. I hope that someone at Ubisoft is listening to all this. Now if someone can actually help me to get my DVD drive to read the disks that would be great. But I guess there is no way other than to buy another DVD drive that is not a DVD writer...


Thank you for allowing me to vent my feelings and tell my story.

[unreal_az]

Some questions.
Have you tried placing the cd in the drive without any emulation programs installed like daemon tools/alchool/nero image drive?
Also do you by any chance have a nf3/nf4 motherboard you installed the hard-drive driver for? I refer to the nvidia nforce sw-ide driver?
If so try to unistall it temporarily (from what I know this driver give you about 5% speed to you hard drive but causes some incompatibilites like this one). You can unistall it via the controll panel in the add remove section.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">

Once upon a time there were Heroes, Heroes everywhere,
Now the time has come again for Heroes to rise again.
Soldier and Official GUNNUT of THE Alderbranchian Army
www.elrath.com (http://www.elrath.com) - Heroes V mapping/modding website and community.

[Tapsa78]

Hi Unreal_az.

I have a Asus A7N8X motherboard, which has a nforce2 chipset. One of the things I tried (but forgot to mention) was that I tried putting the DVD in before Windows loaded. What I did was I rebooted, and hit del to get to BIOS setup, and while the computer was waiting there I put the disc in the drive. The result was the same, the disc wouldn't spin up... So this really seems to be a hardware incompatibility problem I think...

[SilverNaut]

Im facing the same problem, unfortunately I just bought the game+the expansion together yesturday and my DVD cant read niether of the two disks
like Tapsa78 I hear noises like it's trying to read but the drive just dont recognize the disk

I dont have nf3/nf4 motherboard, and I uninstalled any burning programs I had on my computer and I still get the same results

Please help...

[Patenaudeluc]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SilverNaut:
Im facing the same problem, unfortunately I just bought the game+the expansion together yesturday and my DVD cant read niether of the two disks
like Tapsa78 I hear noises like it's trying to read but the drive just dont recognize the disk

I dont have nf3/nf4 motherboard, and I uninstalled any burning programs I had on my computer and I still get the same results

Please help... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Go onto the manufacturer's web-site and, get the latest driver available for this DVD-burner(Fall 2006 preferably).

If it still does not work, go get the cd version of both game and expansion. Then, use the cd-RW function of your DVD-burner for installing and playing HoMM5.

Good Luck everyone!! http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif

[unreal_az]

@Tapsa78 you tried to view the disc from windows right?
Thus no hardware problems. Just software.
You can insert the disk whenever you want if windows doesn't read it then you have a software problem. (if the dvd-rom reads other discs).<div class="ev_tpc_signature">

Once upon a time there were Heroes, Heroes everywhere,
Now the time has come again for Heroes to rise again.
Soldier and Official GUNNUT of THE Alderbranchian Army
www.elrath.com (http://www.elrath.com) - Heroes V mapping/modding website and community.

[Tapsa78]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by unreal_az:
@Tapsa78 you tried to view the disc from windows right?
Thus no hardware problems. Just software.
You can insert the disk whenever you want if windows doesn't read it then you have a software problem. (if the dvd-rom reads other discs). </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Unreal_az.

If I put the DVD in to my drive before Windows loads up (like I said, I did this while in the BIOS setup screen), the result is the same. The DVD wont spin up. The drive makes this odd noise as it is trying to get the disc to spin up, but can't. As there is no OS loaded at this time, this must be a hardware issue.

I also have Windows Vista installed (I'm an MSDN subscriber so I have a legal copy in case you care http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif ), and after I installed the RTM build of Vista a few weeks ago, I tried the HOMMV DVD there, before I had installed anything. The result was the same. The disc wont spin up, and therefore Windows can't read it...

I have installed the latest firmware for my DVD drive, and that didn't help. My DVD drive reads other discs fine, and also burns DVD's and CD's. The only problems I have are with these copy protected DVD's...

[Patenaudeluc]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Tapsa78:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by unreal_az:
@Tapsa78 you tried to view the disc from windows right?
Thus no hardware problems. Just software.
You can insert the disk whenever you want if windows doesn't read it then you have a software problem. (if the dvd-rom reads other discs). </div></BLOCKQUOTE>


Hi Unreal_az.

If I put the DVD in to my drive before Windows loads up (like I said, I did this while in the BIOS setup screen), the result is the same. The DVD wont spin up. The drive makes this odd noise as it is trying to get the disc to spin up, but can't. As there is no OS loaded at this time, this must be a hardware issue.

I also have Windows Vista installed (I'm an MSDN subscriber so I have a legal copy in case you care http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif ), and after I installed the RTM build of Vista a few weeks ago, I tried the HOMMV DVD there, before I had installed anything. The result was the same. The disc wont spin up, and therefore Windows can't read it...

I have installed the latest firmware for my DVD drive, and that didn't help. My DVD drive reads other discs fine, and also burns DVD's and CD's. The only problems I have are with these copy protected DVD's... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Here's another question I have to ask you: Did you install the Full version of 32bit or 64bit type of WinVista?

This quite important of a question, since HoMM5 will run only in 32bit. 32bit programming that is.
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Tapsa78]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Patenaudeluc:
Here's another question I have to ask you: Did you install the Full version of 32bit or 64bit type of WinVista?

This quite important of a question, since HoMM5 will run only in 32bit. 32bit programming that is.
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've got the 32 bit version of Vista installed. Not that it would make any diffrence in my case. The DVD should be readable regardless of the OS or CPU architecture...

But on topic, I've been in contact with Securom's support about this, but they haven't yet been able to provide a solution. They just told me what I already knew: the disc is not compatible with my drive...

[DeejMaster1]

Did you have Vista installed on your computer 6 months ago? Good luck with your new OS. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Try going into your System Properties Manager and disabling the Read-ahead on your CD/DVD.

You might also make sure that you have your DMA enabled. When I have tried to create back-ups of certain DVD's, protection kind of "disables" the drive until I go back in and enable DMA and then reboot.
When I say "disabled", the disc will read something and then does nothing.