Disclaimer: This thread has nothing to do with the process of copying games or software.​ I've been very a happy pc user for 15 years. I've supported the software industry and devoted countless hours of time at work helping others with there pc problems.

• Safedisc Protection For Macrovision-protection-safedisc

Even when I come home I still 'manage' to reak of a helpful smell, since everyone still comes up to me and asks me to help fix there pcs at my door! & yes I still do. I've always loved computers and software. But we're all getting into an ever changing era. I would like to think of our day and time as a 'trial' period. Software has come a long way and so have pcs.

I've put up with numerous pc related problems with a shrug, when most would have a breakdown and smash their towers to the ground. I'm not an avid gamer, but I do own many game titles which I barely play since I work so very much. I recently bought 'Prince Of Persia - Warrior Within' in a discount rack at wal mart for $10. Before installing the game I went online and did some reading to see how I could configure my joypad once it was up and running. I accidentally ran into a thread which mentioned the fact that most pc games come with copy protection files that secretly make there way into your pc during game installation. Most of these copy protection files cause hardware failure or system instability. When I read about this intrusive scheme I freaked out.

How dare companies place files which can potenially ruin the buyers computer? So I sadly state that I own the following pc games with their corresponding copy protection schemes: Prince Of Persia - Warrior Within: SafeDisc v4.00.001 Hitman - Silent Assasin: SecuROM v4. Hitman - Contracts: SecuROM v5. Hitman - Blood Money: SecuROM v7. Call Of Duty 2: SafeDisc v4.60 XII: Some versions with SafeDisc v4.00.002, and some versions possibly use Starforce (unknown version) Men Of Valor: SecuROM v5.

Contract Jack: SecuROM v4. Max Payne 2 - The Fall of Max Payne: SecuROM v4. I did a lot of reading about these copy protection schemes, and I feel very upset about the measures companies have been taking. Yes I do respect their opinions and wish all companies their fair profit of the mighty dollar, but as an anti-pirater I go agianst such computer file schemes being placed on my system. I am currently under the umbrella of three copy protection schemes lurking around my pc (SecuRom, SafeDisk, & Starforce). I've done some reading online about the adverse effects from the Starforce copy protection that is installed on a users pc during software setup. It seems that this is the worst case of copy protection schemes that one can encounter.

It can supposedly ruin the lasers in your disc drive(s) even when you are'nt burning cds/dvds. The starforce protection scheme can make your drives fail when playing back dvd movies or burning simple data such as documents, pictures, etc.

It can even make your pc restart out of nowhere while playing retail audio cds. I've done quite a lot of reading about starforce and welcome anyone who wants to remove it, and feels they have been infected with this copy protection scheme on their system.

The following link is the actual starforce removal tool from the actual company: (visit 's support section, if you would like to verify that this is legitimate) Great so by now I've combated starforce and now I'm left with safedisk, and securom on my system. My question is. Does anyone know of an official way to remove SafeDisk or SecuRom off my system? (Every version) Note: Removing it off one's system has absolutely nothing to do with creating backup copies of games/software. This is a legitimate question as to how one can remove the copy protection schemes once they are already secretly installed on a users system during software setup. I know what your thinking. 'But wait does'nt the old saying go that once you remove the copy protection schemes off your system the software that once used this refuses to work?'

The answer is yes in some cases and no in others. But the question I have asked anyone to help me out with is more of a removal question once the software has already been uninstalled. (Because uninstallation of the copy protected software does not remove the copy protection scheme files. I can't sleep knowing such intrusive, disrespectful, virus prone, and potentially hardware killing files are on my system.

By the way if you cannot help or have unuseful comments please do not reply. You'll just be spamming this thread. 'SafeDisc installs its own Windows device driver to the user's computer, named secdrv.sys.

In addition to enabling the copy protection, it grants ring 0 access to the running application. This is a potential security risk, since trojans and other malware could use the driver to obtain administrator access to the machine, even if the programs are running under a limited account. Even worse is that (beside the default configuration on Windows XP), most installers don't set the security configuration appropriately, allowing every user to let the driver configuration point at an arbitrarily chosen executable which (at the next reboot) is started with administrator privileges.' SecuROM v4.6 SecuROM v4.6 has been the underdog of commercial copy protection.

The protection modifies a CD-ROM's q-channel in order to make a protected original distinguishable from a copy. A set of nine locations where the Q-Channel is purposely destroyed is computed by the following function (demonstrated as python-code), using a vendor specific key. BadSQ = 0x0 VendorKey = 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 Seed = 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 BadSQTable = 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 round = 0 for a in range (0,256): BadSQ = BadSQ + (VendorKeya% 9 & 0x1F) + 0x20 for b in range (0,9): if (Seed a): BadSQTableround = BadSQ round += 1 VendorKey, Seed and BadSQ are initialized to secret values. Possible optimizations were omitted to reflect the original implementation. The function calculates nine sector numbers; if the correspondig Q-channel is not readable at these locations, the CD is considered being original. Note that the key is always the same for all titles issued by a specific vendor, resulting in identical Q-channel patterns.

Also note that every key has 134.217.727 'twinks' that will produce an identical BadSQTable. SecuROM v4.7 and above After development on SecuROM had apparently been stopped, SecuROM v4.7 had been the first updated version for months, obviously being a 'public' beta. The new SecuROM brought several major changes about how the protection works and how it is integrated into the target program. Unlike SecuROM v4.6, which relied on illegal SubQ-Information, the new scheme utilises 'data density measurement' (not to be confused with 'data position measurement' as being used by other protections). While the data density on normal CD/DVD-ROMs constantly degrades from the most inner to the most outer sector, data density on SecuROM v4.7 (and up) protected CD/DVD-ROMs is diversified by a certain, vendor specific pattern. This pattern can be reconstructed by high-precision time measurement during softwareCD/DVD-drive interaction and reflects the vendor-key as mentioned above.

To do so the protection defines a set of locations spread over the disc and issue two SCSI-read-commands per location to the drive. As the disc spins, the time it takes for the second command to return depends on the time it takes the disc to do a full round and thus depends on the data-density.

To achieve the required timing-precision, the RDTSC command is used, which has a resolution of about 0.28 microseconds on x86-CPUs. The pattern is made up from 72 locations, each either with normal or higher than normal density and thus reflects a binary pattern which assembles to the vendor specific key mentioned above.

Safedisc Protection For Macrovision-protection-safedisc

SecuROM v4.84 and beyond includes 'Trigger Functions' which allow the developer to program multiple and fully customizable authentication checks throughout the entire application. As the protection places itself between the application's code and the OS, it can alter the behaviour of selected system functions. Consider the following example (Pseudocode) if (GetCurrentDate ') then WorkCorrectly else ScrewItUpSomehow end if Obviously, a 'normal' GetCurrentDate function will never return '. However, as SecuROM can modify the function's result, the application can check for the protection's presence during runtime; if the protection has been removed, the function will return with some other valid value, giving the application the opportunity to display an error message or render the application unusable (e.g. Provoking a crash to desktop, making enemies invincible). There are many different ways how 'triggers' can be integrated into a program, making it much more complicated to universally circumvent the protection. Click to expand.

With all this being said I am positive that some of these files are on my system. I have checked and found Safedisk's 'secdrv.sys' on my system. As far as SecuRom files. Hmm I can't really say that I know they are on my system because I don't understand much of what those qutoes on SecuRom from wikipedia mean.

From what I assume I believe SecuRom is only in the exe file of the game. So you may be right on that one but only because I can't understand all the lingo from the wikipedia quotes. It does mention that SecuRom v7.x installs 'UAService7.exe' on a users system. I tried to scan for it but did'nt find anything. I probably will later as it must be hidden. The point is I just want to take these files off my system safely. Because I know for a fact if you remove SafeDisk or SecuRom you may be damaging your system a lot more than repairing.

I really don't want these files causing system instability, hard drive failure, dvd drive failure, or inviting virus'. I know I have SecuRom v4.6 to v7.0, and SafeDisk v4 to v5 on my system (and if you are right.

Some of those may only be on my game disks). SafeDisc installs its own Windows device driver to the user's computer, named secdrv.sys.

In English: The first versions had copy protection with files on the CD. The 4.6 versions used fake bad sectors on the CD to prevent copying. The newest version uses a service thats installed with the game. The service thing is new to me, but doesn't surprise me.

For example, you have Adobe and several other companies (Microsoft even) doing the very same thing. Love it or hate it, its the price we all pay because of retarded as hell piraters. It should be noted that I have many, many games installed in my Windows XP installation, and I do not have this service. In English: The first versions had copy protection with files on the CD. The 4.6 versions used fake bad sectors on the CD to prevent copying.

The newest version uses a service thats installed with the game. The service thing is new to me, but doesn't surprise me. For example, you have Adobe and several other companies (Microsoft even) doing the very same thing. Love it or hate it, its the price we all pay because of retarded as hell piraters. It should be noted that I have many, many games installed in my Windows XP installation, and I do not have this service.

This optical disc authoring tool bring an edge over other copy protection schemes such as SecuROM and SafeDisc coupled with its dynamic features and tools meant for virtual devices. You can create, store, mount images as well as pay for additional pro features by downloading the Daemon tool meant for PC offline installer. Features. Users can mount all known forms of disc image files using Daemon Tools Lite 10 which can emulate up to 4 DT + SCSI + HDD devices. The images created of optical discs can be accessed through a well-organised catalogue. You can thus keep your favourite images handy by creating MDS, MDX and ISO files. TrueCrypt containers and VHD backups can keep your files safe and secure as you exercise the final choice regarding storage and protection of data using Daemon Tools Lite 10.

You can also benefit out of best PC performance and added RAM disk in addition to the premium protection level. Its Image Editing platform helps in creating new images from data files, optical discs and audio CDs. It becomes easy to burn data, images and audio files into optical media as well as copying and erasing discs with its ready to use burning software.

The durable, fast, reusable, compact and modern USB-sticks helps in storing private data and the operating system installer. Longest of gaps get diminished coupled with the iSCSI initiator wherein remote images can be used as local ones by connecting with iSCSI Targets. Time involved in burning images instead of discs and wear-and-tear of physical drives get reduced coupled with this writable virtual device. You can mount images as per requirement by maximizing the number of virtual devices.