Virtual Drives...

[Protocol]

I need to detect if a user has virtual drives installed on their system. Does anyone know of a shure-fire way to detect this without prompting the user?

[Centauri Soldier]

The best thing I could find on google was that if you check the I/O port of the drive and it has one then it is a real CD/DVD drive. If the drive does not have an I/O port assigned then it is a virtual device...at least that is what I read.

As far as finding the I/O port value of the drive, I don't know. I couldn't find info on that.

[Centauri Soldier]

OK dug a bit more and here's what I found.

I found my virtual drives in the registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\S CSI\CdRom&Ven_AXV&Prod_CD/DVD-ROM&Rev_2.2a
(the forum is putting a space in "SCSI" but there should not be one.)

I found all my mounted devices at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Now, all my cd/dvd drives are in mounted devices...virtual and real. I can tell them apart because I know the drive letters and names of the devices but I'm not sure how you generally distinguish them.

and found my actual drive at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Hardwa re Profiles\Current\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE \CdRomOptiarc_DVD_RW_AD-7200S_________________1.06____

[bule]

If there was a way to distinguish it, than Daemon Tools would be of no use. Big companies like EA can not figure out how to detect a virtual drive, therefore...

[rexzooly]

if you was looking for a make of Vdive you could look for the said program see if its there most people us a small set of VDRIVES so i guess it would be easy ish to know it they have a VDrive. maybe? :huh

[RizlaUK]

its easy to setup a virtual drive, just shell "SUBST f: c:\path\folder", but detecting one on the otherhand, is a little more tricky!

[screwed over]

its easy to setup a virtual drive, just shell "SUBST f: c:\path\folder", but detecting one on the otherhand, is a little more tricky!

any information on how to remove them once youve done that?

[RizlaUK]

reboot ya pc or use "/D", unless you add the drive to autoexec.bat then it will be removed after a reboot


Syntax

Associates a path with a drive letter.

SUBST [drive1: [drive2:]path]
SUBST drive1: /Ddrive1: Specifies a virtual drive to which you want to assign a path.
[drive2:]path Specifies a physical drive and path you want to assign to a virtual drive.
/D Deletes a substituted (virtual) drive.


Type SUBST with no parameters to display a list of current virtual drives.

Examples

SUBST a: .

Sets the directory you are in and subdirectories thereafter into the A: drive. So if you were to type A: after doing this command you would see everything in the directory that you typed this command in.

If you were to reboot your computer this will clear the SUBST command and put your drives back to original letters (unless command placed into the autoexec.bat).

Note: You cannot subst network drives.

source
http://www.computerhope.com/substhlp.htm