Blast from the past

[Leia]

Hi,
My family have recently purchased a sporting facility and the computer
and program that are used to work out the team draws and points etc
are items best put in a museum!

Ultimately we want to use the same DOS-based program (called SCAMP)
for the team draws etc but on a better PC. (one that doesn't rely on
an equally ancient printer)

The program's installation disks are on 5.25" floppies and I have
copied these onto 3.5" disks. But when I copy these files to my hard
drive (on a Pentium 3 Win2000 machine) and try to run the program, an
error from the company who made the program comes up like this:

UNAUTHORISED ACCESS ATTEMPTED-------------ACCESS DENIED
IMMEDIATELY PHONE <company's name> ON <phone no.>

IF ANOTHER ATTEMPT IS MADE TO ACCESS SCAMP
YOUR DATA WILL BE ERASED

DO NOT ATTEMPT ACCESS WITHOUT PHONING FIRST

YOU WILL REGRET IT
===================

A friend told me that companies had a way of "fixing" 5.25" floppies
so that when people copied their software, it would recognise this and
send a warning. As the company no longer exists we are at a dead end.

Is this true? If so, how do I get around this? The program is at
least 10 years old and was legitimately purchased so it's not as
though we're making a pirate copy - we just want it on a better
computer(with a printer from this century!)

Can anyone help at all? Or do I need to provide more info?
Any suggestions at all are extremely welcome.

Cheers
Leia

[Michel]

Hi Leia,

If you'd write protect the disks or the harddisk-folder you run it from... I
don't see a way for this program to erase anything.

And to answer your question: Yes, it is possible to add code that erases
some required piece of info on copy attempt.
Think of it... everything has a serial number...and if you're able to read
the serial number from the disk you can also check if the disk the program
is used from, is the original disk it was on at sale.

Regards,

Michel


"Leia" <irener10@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:2f665c11.0311102131.4ab204d3@posting.google.com... Hi, My family have recently purchased a sporting facility and the computer and program that are used to work out the team draws and points etc are items best put in a museum! Ultimately we want to use the same DOS-based program (called SCAMP) for the team draws etc but on a better PC. (one that doesn't rely on an equally ancient printer) The program's installation disks are on 5.25" floppies and I have copied these onto 3.5" disks. But when I copy these files to my hard drive (on a Pentium 3 Win2000 machine) and try to run the program, an error from the company who made the program comes up like this: UNAUTHORISED ACCESS ATTEMPTED-------------ACCESS DENIED IMMEDIATELY PHONE <company's name> ON <phone no.> IF ANOTHER ATTEMPT IS MADE TO ACCESS SCAMP YOUR DATA WILL BE ERASED DO NOT ATTEMPT ACCESS WITHOUT PHONING FIRST YOU WILL REGRET IT =================== A friend told me that companies had a way of "fixing" 5.25" floppies so that when people copied their software, it would recognise this and send a warning. As the company no longer exists we are at a dead end. Is this true? If so, how do I get around this? The program is at least 10 years old and was legitimately purchased so it's not as though we're making a pirate copy - we just want it on a better computer(with a printer from this century!) Can anyone help at all? Or do I need to provide more info? Any suggestions at all are extremely welcome. Cheers Leia

[Leia]

Michel,

Do you know of any way around this? I just need to know how I can
make the program run without getting that error message coming up.
All that does is erase the .exe file which can be easily copied again.

I just need to get past the error message so I can use the program.

Leia

[Michel]

That would take reverse engineering.
Maybe there's something out there that allows you to create an image,
instead of a copy, and work from there.
you got a 5,25" floppy dyno you can hookup to your system to pull an image
from?



"Leia" <irener10@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:2f665c11.0311140034.6d0aef74@posting.google.com... Michel, Do you know of any way around this? I just need to know how I can make the program run without getting that error message coming up. All that does is erase the .exe file which can be easily copied again. I just need to get past the error message so I can use the program. Leia

[rebocardo]

First I would install a 5.25 drive from the old machine (probably has two)
into the new computer. Then I would make image copies of the floppies and
store it on a CD. Then I would install and load from the floppies. Then I
would make an image of the hard drive and a file copy of the hard drive. You
might consider running a DOS partition, there is a good chance this software
might not even run under the newer Windows or might slow it down to a snails
crawl.

There are ways of protecting a floppy so data can not be copied or hiding
data on tracks so it does not show up in a normal floppy copy. I believe
Microsoft did that to some older stuff like C++ when it first came out. How
to beat that belongs in another group.

[LJ]

rebocardo wrote: First I would install a 5.25 drive from the old machine (probably has two) into the new computer. Then I would make image copies of the floppies and store it on a CD. Then I would install and load from the floppies. Then I would make an image of the hard drive and a file copy of the hard drive. You might consider running a DOS partition, there is a good chance this software might not even run under the newer Windows or might slow it down to a snails crawl. There are ways of protecting a floppy so data can not be copied or hiding data on tracks so it does not show up in a normal floppy copy. I believe Microsoft did that to some older stuff like C++ when it first came out. How to beat that belongs in another group.

There's some chance that the floppy has a deliberate defect and the
software is checking that the defect is there. If so, a copy of the
floppy's data to a perfect medium won't work.
This can be confirmed if the software's calls to the floppy disk
driver can be traced, unless the software manipulates the hardware
deliberately.
It sounds like more work than rewriting the software from scratch.

--Mike Amling

[Pete M]

Hi Leia

Trail's a bit cold now I know....

There are various ways to make floppies hard to copy. But it is possible
that you might be able to duplicate the installation, i.e. the installed
copy on the HDD in the old PC.

I won't go into it any further at the moment because a number of questions
arise, LMK if you want to pursue this.

Cheers,

Pete M

"Leia" <irener10@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:2f665c11.0311102131.4ab204d3@posting.google.com... Hi, My family have recently purchased a sporting facility and the computer and program that are used to work out the team draws and points etc are items best put in a museum! Ultimately we want to use the same DOS-based program (called SCAMP) for the team draws etc but on a better PC. (one that doesn't rely on an equally ancient printer) The program's installation disks are on 5.25" floppies and I have copied these onto 3.5" disks. But when I copy these files to my hard drive (on a Pentium 3 Win2000 machine) and try to run the program, an error from the company who made the program comes up like this: UNAUTHORISED ACCESS ATTEMPTED-------------ACCESS DENIED IMMEDIATELY PHONE <company's name> ON <phone no.> IF ANOTHER ATTEMPT IS MADE TO ACCESS SCAMP YOUR DATA WILL BE ERASED DO NOT ATTEMPT ACCESS WITHOUT PHONING FIRST YOU WILL REGRET IT =================== A friend told me that companies had a way of "fixing" 5.25" floppies so that when people copied their software, it would recognise this and send a warning. As the company no longer exists we are at a dead end. Is this true? If so, how do I get around this? The program is at least 10 years old and was legitimately purchased so it's not as though we're making a pirate copy - we just want it on a better computer(with a printer from this century!) Can anyone help at all? Or do I need to provide more info? Any suggestions at all are extremely welcome. Cheers Leia