Hey fellas...
I have been trying to rip the brand spankin new version of a killer math/engineering program called Matlab. Both Clony XXL and A-Ray scanners said it looked like Safedisc 2. I copied the image in Alcohol using the Safedisc 2/3 option, and it ripped and burned fine.

Stupid Matlab has a CD check when you try and start the program. My goal is to just have the image mounted on a virtual drive, leaving my actual cd-rw free.

With the burned copy in the drive i can run Matlab just fine, but if i try and run matlab with the image monuted on a virtual drive it says i need to insert the cd. i tried screwing around with every emulation option in matlab and damon tools, still no use. tried swapping the drive letters of my physical and virtual drive, no use.

Why would it make a perfect copy of the cd that works to install and run, but the emulated copy doesnt work?

suggestions?

thanks,
randy

ok, firstly ClonyXXL is very out of date, i suggest you first scan with A-Ray scanner and let us know what it finds.

regards,

ben

thanks for the reply ben,

as mentioned in my original post, i did use a-ray, and it said it looked like safedisc 2/3.

thanks,

randy

Did you scan the install directory? If not use PID and aray to compare your results.

i scanned the whole cd and install directory with PID and it came up no/unknown protection... i ripped the image again using alcohol on another computer, and matlab will not recognize the mounted image on that computer as being a disc in the drive either. I also have tried using daemon tools, to no avail. and the other computer also will still run off the copy i made using the "safedisc 2" setting on alcohol.

The program may be hot-wired to run only from its installation drive. Whilst editing the registry sometimes solves those issues, sometimes it doesn't.

Try uninstalling the program, then re-installing from the disc image mounted on the virtual drive and see if it then works from the mounted image.

alright, i uninstalled the program, deleted every line in the registry that had the word matlab in it, and re-installed it from the disc image, and it still wont run without the physical backup in the drive. im pretty sure its not my emulation software, diablo2 and some of my other protected images seem to be working fine... any other ideas?
thanks yall,
randy

How old is the progam?

the program itself has been out for many years... however, the new version, release 14, has only been out for maybe 3 or 4 months MAX and boasts "major changes and improvements"

Good question. If it's an old proggie, it may be one of those that will run only from the rom with the lowest drive letter.

i just tried changing all my drive letters around, changing the names, changing the drive i installed it from in the registry, still no luck... is it possible that its just the copy protection not letting it run of the virtual drive?

That's really weird I'm also using mathlab version 14 and I can use it without the CD and my disc isn't protected

is it the regular matlab r14 or is it the student version? The regular one you need a S/N to install i believe, the student version you dont need a S/N or cd-key or anything, you just have to have the disc in the drive to run it. It even says in the manual... if yours is the regular version, that would be why. If you have the student version, how long ago did you get it, and where? Did yours come with Simulink and the Symbolic Math Toolbox as well? One disc or two?
Thanks again

It's a student version which needs a serial for installation, got it from my University to solve nice math stuff .

i wonder if there are two different student versions out...? I purchased mine through Texas A&M late last week, and it has no serial, and says you must have the CD in. If they could have told me there were two versions, that wouldda helped.

as far as why it has to be run off the physical drive, not the virtual, are we out of possible solutions?

Seems DTools isn't working, did you try CloneCD's virtual drive www.slysoft.com?

I just bought R14 as well and am having the same problem. I had R12 successfully working with Daemon Tools, so I'm guessing that the new version of SafeDisc protection is giving the emulation software some grief. So far I've tried both Daemon Tools and Alcohol 52% to no avail. (Ripped with Alcohol 52%). Hmm... I'll try some of the other suggestions and see what I come up with.

@mcgrant and mohowski: What versions of Alcohol are you running?

Alcohol 52%, 1.9.2, Build 1705.

Incidentally I've since used CloneCD to make a new rip on a different computer with a Plextor 40/12/40A burner. It was much faster than Alcohol on my laptop, where I generated the first image, but alas it still doesn't work (on my laptop).

well i cant seem to get it to work at all....i can install from the backup but it doesnt fool it when i try to open matlab (it asks for the cd). I used Clone CD and alcohol 120%...both didnt work. Ive got a Samsung sm-216B combo drive...is that bad? What brand is fool-proof (i am looking into purchaseing a dual data dvd burner).

Update: it would seem that the executables are identical between the CD-bound student version and the key-enabled student version. So the protection code must be contained in one of the DLLs, and it may explain why examining the executable fails to yield full information about protection.

EDIT: or... it's using the latest SafeDisc Advanced.

So what does that mean....i still cant get it to open of a burned copy.....does it have to be the same disc as it was installed with maybe? Could it be generating a random id when installed and looks for the same id?

ill try uninstall and reinstall with the backup and see what happens...

well i dont think i deleted everything because after the uninstall i reinstalled and it already knew my name and school? is there some stuff in the reg that doesnt get deleted? by the way i continuded witht he install anyhow and it didnt not work...asked for the real cd...WHAT GIVES this piece of plastic is outsmarting me AHHHHHHH!!!

Ler---I'm pretty sure we're dealing with SafeDisc 4 here, which is a new update. Unfortunately, it seems that CD Freaks just haven't had that much experience with it yet I do see one successful copy over in the Copy Protection forum, but that's it. Anyway, I've had no luck myself. And frankly I'm not interested in burning a copy, I just want to run it off a virtual drive.

yea well me too...but i think it is a good plan to try to get it to run off a backup cd first then work out the virtual drive stuff....

I definitly am NOT giving up, i dont want to have a 100 program not run becasue the friggin cd is lost/scratched. Also not having to wait for the cd to spin up would be cool :-)