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Disabling a drive

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 2:34 pm
by whertz
Is it possible in PB to disable/enable a drive, the same was as if you right-click the device in device manager and disable it from there? Specifically I'm looking to disable a CD-ROM drive.

The reason why is I want to make a little launcher program as some old games are badly written and look for the first CD-ROM drive for CD audio and ignore the rest of your drives. I don't want to use the first CD drive, but it's annoying going into device manager and disabling/enabling the first drive.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Re: Disabling a drive

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 3:51 pm
by MachineCode
Usually the game will search for a drive letter in its config files or Registry settings. I suggest you search those first to see if you can't edit them to a different drive letter. Out of curiosity, which game is doing this?

Re: Disabling a drive

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 4:09 pm
by Trond
How about switching the cables, so the second becomes the first?

Re: Disabling a drive

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 4:17 pm
by whertz
@MachineCode: I've come across this a few times, but the game I'm referring to is Age of Empires (the original). There is a registry setting for cd drive, but it is used for copy protection/loading data only. CD audio is always used from the first CD drive it comes across.

@Trond: Yes, I could do that but I've copied the CD to an image and I'm using a virtual drive to play the audio (faster).

While searhing I came across a utility by MS called DevCon http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272 which lets you disable devices from the command line. I might just use this for the time being.