CM4 Blacklisted?

[Reef]

Is it possible that CM4 (Championship Manager 4) is blacklisted?

The game starts, but when I click on an option it gives me the following error:

NOCD2-NOCD2: The copy protection system was unable to verify your copy of Championship Manager. Please ensure you have a valid CD in your CDROM drive.

Like I said, when I start the game it gets passed the Securom protection, but it's like the game detects it's running from Daemon Tools and just quits...

Copy was made with Alcohol120% and I never had this problem before with other Securom titles like Unreal Tournament and Unreal 2.

Made a copy with CloneCD/Blindwrite and that works fine, but I prefer running games using Daemon Tools.

[Andareed]

Can you find out what the securom version is? Did you update the game?

I am confused. You say you made a copy with alcohol, but then say you can't mount it with daemon tools?

[Reef]

I made an image file with Alcohol and mounted it with DT.
The game starts (it gets passed the initial securom check);
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but when I want to check or change some team settings in the game it just quits and returns the error message I mentioned in the above post.

I also made a backup CD using CloneCD and the Twinpeaks tool and that works fine. But I prefer using images because it's faster and there's no hassle with CD's. But it won't work using DT or the Alcohol CD emulator.

So I guess the protection can detect it's running from an emulator and not from a real CD.

Securom version is 4.84.69.0101 (according to ClonyXXL 2.0.1.4c)

[Andareed]

It is possible it only plays from the intsall drive letter. Try reintsalling from the image. Also, it might only check the first drive letter (black hawk down had this bug).

[Reef]

I installed the game from the image, and DT uses the first drive letter.
It runs from a real CD (thus not using the drive it installed from).
In fact, it runs from any real CDROM/DVD/CDWRITER, but not from a CD emulator.

So the only thing I can think of is that DT and the Alcohol CD emulator are blacklisted in this version of Securom.

[Andareed]

It is possible there is a blacklist.

Some ppl in the alcohol support forum posted questions about making a physical backup, and not an image.

Also, the newest patch of civ III is updated to 4.84.65.0025, which is higher than cm4's version. It can be used fine with daemon tools (3.32). Make sure you have this latest version!

[Reef]

I've read something about another protection called 'fade', which is often used in combination with Securom. Could it be that CM4 has this protection? Because I don't have any problem getting passed the initial securom check. The game starts, I can load saved games, but when I try to change some settings it quits with the protection error...

[Andareed]

Never heard of this 'fade', but I will look it up later.

[Reef]

Hmm, just noticed you mentioned civ 3 with securom 4.84.65.0025 ...
This is not higher than the one on CM4 (4.84.69.0101)

Just to let you know 8)

So this could be a new blacklist problem after all...

[Andareed]

You are right! My eyes don't work today :shock:

You might be right that there is a blacklist.

[Reef]

I updated the game with the newest patch and now the blacklisting seems to be gone
Very strange, it wouldn't work before with any CD emulator (only with real CD's);
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not even the new one from Alcohol that was released today.
And after updating the game all the problems were gone :lol:

[Andareed]

Not strange at all. Black hawk down also released a patch that fixed some issues with 'first' cdrom only.