well windows shows that all the drivers are installed for it, and no I do not have a driver cd. The package I ordered from dell did not come with one nor an xp installation cd either for that matter. So I guess I'll just continue to bang my head against the wall trying to figure this out!(stupid me for trying to get around starforce protection instead of just buying a 30 dollar silly game)
Anyway here's some more info on the file or files that I think caused this mess
I downloaded this file from edonkey
Meta Tag Information
Availability 16
Format exe
Hash 667a268a46dd08899e373eedb870b2ad
Name Starforce Cleaner.exe
Size 18432
Type Pro
And here's a note I received (not sure if it came with download though)
Just a note to say that I did not create this Starforce cleaner tool,
and take no responsibility for any results you obtain when using it.
I just host it as a convenience.
It was originally distributed by either Codemasters or The Adventure Company
-- Jeff Jones
Also this note
Download and execute a file called StarForce Cleaner v 5.0
And bye bye StarForce
Modded bye SFxKaOs
And I also have this tool and was trying to use it after I knew things were really screwed up with my drive. But it's too damn complicated for me to figure out.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// //
// Starforce Nightmare //
// Enjoy! //
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1. Overview
This tool lets you deactivate CDRom drives in your system. Actually it supports
not just deactivating of all drives on IDE channel, like star**** it do, but even a
cd drive separately. Also the combination of hard drive and cd drive on the same channel
would be possible too.
This program is the technical further stage of star**** project. The project star****
had to be freezed for undefined time because our development team has changed.
Before using this program keep in mind: all what you do, you do on your own risk.
Be carefull, if you are using it: not all features will work for every one, it depends
on your hardware and software combination.
If you are not sure about it, delete this program.
Important!!!
After long time beta testing I had to add this information, because not all drives fully
conform to ATA standards and not all commands are supported by those drives.
I don't mean just cd drives, there are LS 120, Zip, MO, Flash drives, even hard drives are involved, and so on. Also, the using of this program can cause physical damage of your IDE drives. There is no other way to find it out, if the drive is fully supported or not, as to try it! BUT THIS CAN CAUSE HARDWARE DAMAGE OF YOUR DRIVES! USE IT ALWAYS ON YOUR OWN RISK!
IF YOU ARE NOT SURE, DELETE THIS PROGRAM!
Please don't ask me about, should the program work for you or not, I can't know it for sure.
2. Short briefing (how to)
- IMPORTANT: For correct working you must have administrator rights
Control buttons purposes explanation
- "Disable ch1" // this button lets disable first IDE channel of built-in ATA controller (Primary Channel)
- "Disable ch2" // this button lets disable second IDE channel of built-in ATA controller (Secondary Channel)
- "Disable ATA" // this button lets disable built-in ATA controller
- "Disable CD" // this button lets disable installed ATAPI CDROMs on built-in ATA controller automatically
- "Disable node" // this button lets disable relation to SCSI CDROMs device nodes
.
.
- "Enable ch1" // this button lets reenable first IDE channel of built-in ATA controller (Primary Channel)
- "Enable ch2" // this button lets reenable second IDE channel of built-in ATA controller (Secondary Channel)
- "Enable ATA" // this button lets reenable built-in ATA controller
- "Enable CD" // this button lets reenable installed ATAPI CDROMs on built-in ATA controller automatically
- "Enable node" // this button lets reenable relation to SCSI CDROMs device nodes
----------------------------------------------------------------
If automatical handling doesn't help you to deactivate your drives, you can try its manual equivalent.
- "Pr.Master Off" // this button lets disable one installed drive in master position on Primary Channel
- "Pr.Slave Off" // this button lets disable one installed drive in slave position on Primary Channel
- "Sc.Master Off" // this button lets disable one installed drive in master position on Secondary Channel
- "Sc.Slave Off" // this button lets disable one installed drive in slave position on Secondary Channel
-
- "Pr.Mas-Sl Off" // this button lets disable two installed drives in master and slave positions on Primary Channel
- "Sc.Mas-Sl Off" // this button lets disable two installed drives in master and slave positions on Secondary Channel
-
- "Pr.M-Sc.M Off" // this button lets disable two installed drives in both master positions on Primary and Secondary Channel
- "Pr.M-Sc.S Off" // this button lets disable two installed drives in master position on Primary Channel and in slave position on Secondary Channel
- "Pr.S-Sc.M Off" // this button lets disable two installed drives in slave position on Primary Channel and in master position on Secondary Channel
- "Pr.S-Sc.S Off" // this button lets disable two installed drives in both slave positions on Primary and Secondary Channel
.
.
- "Pr.Master On" // this button lets reenable one installed drive in master position on Primary Channel
- "Pr.Slave On" // this button lets reenable one installed drive in slave position on Primary Channel
- "Sc.Master On" // this button lets reenable one installed drive in master position on Secondary Channel
- "Sc.Slave On" // this button lets reenable one installed drive in slave position on Secondary Channel
-
- "Pr.Mas-Sl On" // this button lets reenable two installed drives in master and slave positions on Primary Channel
- "Sc.Mas-Sl On" // this button lets reenable two installed drives in master and slave positions on Secondary Channel
-
- "Pr.M-Sc.M On" // this button lets reenable two installed drives in both master positions on Primary and Secondary Channel
- "Pr.M-Sc.S On" // this button lets reenable two installed drives in master position on Primary Channel and in slave position on Secondary Channel
- "Pr.S-Sc.M On" // this button lets reenable two installed drives in slave position on Primary Channel and in master position on Secondary Channel
- "Pr.S-Sc.S On" // this button lets reenable two installed drives in both slave positions on Primary and Secondary Channel
- IMPORTANT: After clicking on needed button you'll see "Processing..." in main window caption
!!!Be patient, don't click any button till "Processing..." caption will be changed to "Starforce Nightmare"
3. System requirements
This tool is designed for using under Windows XP-Windows 2003 Server (Beta support for Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows 98 and Windows 95)
(IMPORTANT: This tool will not work under Windows 95)
(On Windows2000 systems your host should not be administrated externally by another main computer in the network, else you will not be able to run it properly)
4. Known issues
Since starforce version 3.4.65.09 to prevent old star**** methods for deactivating
cd drives starforce goes a very hardware incompatible way. StarForce protected game tries
to reset ide channel before it begins to check protected disk. Therefore this can take up
to 2 minutes before starforce begins with its disk check. All users, who have CD
drive on SCSI controller, ATAPI CD Drive on ATA/RAID controller, CD drive on USB controller
and even coming hardware innovation called CD drive on SATA controller, all those users are
involved by this hardware incompability issue of Starfore protection. This hardware
incompability appears even than, if you remove all your drives from IDE channel physically
and deactivate your IDE channels in BIOS to set needed resources free, also you don't even
need to use our program to find it out. That's, what you get with Starforce.
It seems, starforce team doesn't care about its hardware compability and not just that, they
don't care about software compability of their product, for which they want money.
If they try to reset the channel, they "play" with priority system of windows os, therefore don't
wonder if your computer will crash or after few times starting the starforce protected game
in such environment you will not be able to start any windows application more. It happens since
starforce version 3.4.65.09 and above.
On our test systems we were very often able to reproduce this software crash issue.
As you see, all what starforce has done before is useless. What they added to the protection
is just rapidly increased hardware and software incompability, nothing more, nothing less.
It's diffucult to imagine, what will be next hardware/software incompability level, if starforce
tries to prevent methods present in this program. How far they will go with their paranoid
idea to don't care about the hardware and software compability of their protection?
How it will work on coming PCI Express? How it will work with controllers in native mode?
I have already noticed many problems with starforce and native mode controllers.
For example most of Nforce2,3+ users can already set their IDE controller in native mode since
windows xp sp1>
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devic...ve-modeATA.mspx
Just add to registry
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\PnP\Pci]
"EnableNativeModeATA"=dword:00000001(cont)