Spellforce Platinum/aspyr edition help...

[M4M]

I have been having a little problem tring to make a working image of this game, Spellforce Platinum Edition, distributed by aspyr (US English DVD version).

according to Protection ID V5.1f, the copy protection is as follows....

JoWood X-Prot v1.6.3.60
SecuROM - Version 7.02

Now, I have tried the latest versions of blindwrite, clonecd and the 2nd to latest version of Alcohol 120% (the latest version has a problem where it ejects the disk when tring to make an image)

The problem that I am having is after creating the image, I mount it in daemon tools (latest release), the menu comes up, I click on play game, spellforce.exe starts, and thats it, it hangs. The securom check doesnt even start up (The spinning disk by the mouse pointer does not appear).

I get the same results regardless of which drive I use ("Lite-on DVDRW SOHW-1633s" and "Optorite DVD RW DD1203")

I know the image is not corrupt because I can install from the images just fine, I just cant launch the game.

any help would be greatly apperciated.

[NetSoerfer]

Did you install the latest patch? Maybe it fixes your problem. If it happens with the original DVD as well, it's likely not Daemon Tools related.

[M4M]

The only patch released for the platinum/aspyr edition was a fixed exe that corrected the "temp key expired" issue.

The game launches just fine from the real DVD, but it is a no go from DT.

HELPFULL INFO: I did at one point in time create a working image of this game using blindwrite, an older version, 5 I beleave it was (but I cant remember the exact build # of blindwrite). Also, if I remember correctly, it was V3.47 DT that I was using at the time also. The problem here is that due to a HD failure, the image was lost, and I am tring to re-make it, but for some reason, all of the popular copy programs no longer seem to be able to make it any more.

any ideas?

[M4M]

UPDATE:

I have made a working image of spellforce platinum/aspyr edition! Here is what I have done to produce a working copy....

Tools needed:
Blindwrite 5.2.18.154
BB5 (BWA Builder 5)
DT V4.03 (Latest version *should* work aswell)

Method:
First, load up BB5, sellect drive (My optorite drive produced better results then the newer lite-on drive.... ). Then click on on start (Default settings used).

When finished, save the bwa file in a folder called "origional bwa file". MAKE SURE THE NAME USED TO SAVE MATCHES EXACTLY TO THE NAME USED TO SAVE THE IMAGE FILE!!!!! In this case, I used "Spellforce Platinum Edition.bwa". The bwa file created had a quality of 96% This *should* work, but lets clean it up. With BB5 still open, sellect File -> Clean last loaded curve. You should notice that the curve is much "cleaner" now. I recommend that you save it as a new bwa file, so if it doesnt work, you dont need to re-make it. Save the cleaned bwa file in a folder called "cleaned bwa file". BE SURE THE NAME ITSELF MATCHES THE OTHER NAME! Hence, the two seperate folders .

Now comes the image creation process. Make a folder, lets say "Game Image". Copy (NOTICE! I said "Copy", NOT "move") the cleaned bwa file into your "Game Image" folder. Now fire up Blindwrite and sellect the drive that has the game in it. save the image in your "Game Image" folder, and MAKE SURE THE IMAGE NAME MATCHES THE BWA NAME!! For example, the BWA file was named "Spellforce Platinum Edition.bwa", so the image name will be saved as "Spellforce Platinum Edition.b5t" Sellect the "Automatic" setting and hit start.

Now, in my case, the image file was created, but the topology extraction failed. This is fine, because we already created it with BB5.

Now load the image in DT and make sure it works.

Observations:
It seems that DT sees the bwa file and uses that when mounting the image. My testing showed the following results..

Origional BWA file (96% quality): Game loaded fine, but took some time to pass the securom check.
Cleaned BWA file (100% quality): Game loaded fine, securom check passed ALOT sooner.
No BWA file: Game failed to load. came up with an error saying "could not authinticate origional disk.

NOTE: If you are going to do such tests, be sure to unmount the image first, then switch out/remove the bwa files, or else the new bwa/or lack of file will not get loaded.

I hope this helps the others here that have similiar problems with this game.