DSA Theory Test DVD

[jeenuv]

Hi,

This is probably relevant to only those living in the UK; and I can't say the problem is specific to VirtualBox either.

I borrowed a DSA theory test DVD from a friend and installed it on a Windows XP VM. It's an application protected by SecuROM, and fails to launch, citing problems loading security modules. I tried giving direct access to the host DVD drive, providing an ISO image created via. dd, and also mounted a virtual drive in Windows using daemon tools, but the problem remained. So I don't think it's a problem with accessing DVD drive, but rather with having the application launched. When I contacted their support, I was told that they don't support VMs. I tried in Windows XP hosted on both VirtualBox and VMPlayer, both with the same behaviour. I've given up eventually.

I've very little information to offer to ask this question, and this isn't a problem only with VirtualBox, but I wonder using what in the guest could the software be testing for a real hardware. My belief was that VirtualBox would be completely mimicking the underlying hardware and so the guest software, however cunning, shouldn't be able to tell the difference. If we know this, is there a chance of having that mechanism (whatever that is) virtualized?

--
Jeenu

[Martin]

DVD copy protection method rely on parts of the DVD created outside the standard.
That works (most of the time) on real hardware but not always in virtualisation.

[jeenuv]

DVD copy protection method rely on parts of the DVD created outside the standard.
That works (most of the time) on real hardware but not always in virtualisation.

Even with direct access to host DVD? Although I don't exactly know what the Hypervisor does, should't it be relaying requests and responses verbatim, and therefore indistinguishable?

[mpack]

No, requests and replies are not normally passed verbatim. However something like that happens if you enable passthrough mode for the CD/DVD drive.

Normally, VirtualBox implements a simulated CD/DVD drive - it has no physical reality. This simulated drive fulfills read requests by... doing whatever it likes. In practice by reading from a physical host drive or ISO image. This simulated drive would not necessarily relay unmodified sector errors from a host drive.

Try the passthrough mode.

[jeenuv]

Try the passthrough mode.

Is this something other than choosing the host's DVD drive to insert into the virtual disk (i.e. trough Device -> Disk drive)?

[mpack]

No, there is an option called "Passthrough" which appears when a host drive is mapped to a virtual CD drive. Check the VM settings, Storage section while the VM is shut down.

[jeenuv]

Thanks. I don't have the DVD with me right now; I'll give it a go later and post the results back.

[jeenuv]

That didn't help. I think I'll give it a pass and try to find a real Windoze machine to install this.