HELP with Starforce

[ArsT]

OK...
I'm trying to play Knights of the Temple 2, which is protected by Starforce, but it just refuses to work..
I read like ALL the threads here concerning starforce but nothing seems to work .. how can it be that in order to bypass this RIDICULOUS and almost illegal protection the only way is to physically unplug my cables?

if anyone knows how to bypass this protection with Knights of the Temple 2, PLEASE PLEASE i beg of you - reply here step by step.. thank you

[NetSoerfer]

Unfortunately, games protected with the latest versions of StarForce (v3.5 and later) cannot be run from any SCSI drives if any optical IDE drives such as CD or DVD drives are present in the system. That includes all existing virtual drives.

We all dislike how hard it has become to make working backup copies of recent games, but no matter how much we protest, this is never going to change for the better. From a publisher's point of view, StarForce is a very successful product, being impossible to copy on recordable media, impossible to crack (at least the more advanced versions) and very hard to emulate from images. And the harder it is to play without the original CD or DVD, the more people buy the game.

We are currently working on a virtual IDE drive that will at least make playing from images possible again because it fixes the above-mentioned SCSI blacklist (please don't ask about any release date, the only answer we can give you is when it's done. This discussion has been done to death here already.) But until then there is nothing you can do but either unplugging your optical IDE drives or using your original media.

As I said, we do not like this either. But this discussion too has been lead countless times, and it won't help anyone if another thread is started about how idiotic all of this is.

[ArsT]

so please just let me understand here something..
you're saying that i can't have any IDE drives connected NOR virtual drives?
if that's so, how can i even install the game?
assuming i use starforce nightmare (i don't know how effective that is or should i actually physically unplug the cables), shouldn't i have the virtual drive in any case for installing the game itself?

i'm really confused .. please help me out here

thank you

[NetSoerfer]

That was a misunderstanding, you're absolutely right, if you had to unplug or uninstall all optical drives there would be no way to play your games.

If you follow the link I posted in my last message, you'll get an explanation of the whole thing with SCSI and IDE drives.

In a nutshell:

The developers of copy protections have realized that virtual drives are always SCSI based. So they implemented a mechanism that checks if any IDE drives (i.e. physical drives) are present, and if so, refuse to accept the disc (be it the actual original disc or an image they cannot distinguish from the original) from any SCSI drive. They do not blacklist Daemon Tools anymore - because they simply can't - but all SCSI drives instead.

Of course there are other protective measures too, but if you have a good image, it should work if you unplug your optical IDE drives.

By the way, the forums are moderated which is why your posts don't show up immediately. Please don't double post.

[ArsT]

Sorry for double posting..
Ok .. so this time i have read your link from 2 messages above carefully.. and i think i understand...
first, i use nForce 3, so that's something i don't have to disconnect.. as for my DVD-ROM, i guess i do.
in the bottom line, what i should do in order to install and play the game without starforce interfering is:

A: shut my computer and disconnect my DVD-ROM (i only have one DVD-ROM that's also a burner)

B: run windows, mount the image and simply install the game

C: start the game (at that point starforce should not block it)

D: after that i can reconnect my cables

please let me know if that's correct and there's anything i should do otherwise.

Thank you!

[rjcali]

it's just sad that people that buy the game are punished, i have several starforce protected games and they get scratched from playing the games too much THAT I PURCHASED for 50 bucks. A publisher should understand, that there are groups working to crack starforce games anyway, and piraters are going to play the game anyway, either with workarounds or otherwise, the only people getting the short end of the stick are the customers who want to protect the original discs