To anyone who knows more about DVD drives than me: Does the Starforce copy protection system also destroy S-ATA optical drives, or just IDE ones? After having my ND-4570 ruined by SF, I'm keen to find a way round it. All I did was download a free demo game, but since that had SF on it, I got infected. I also note the removal tool does nothing but remove the visible traces of Starforce, I see it still works underneath... I'm keen not to suffer these setbacks!
Sam, an interesting issue! I've been having a look for some info for about 15 minutes and can't find anything regarding your question and can't comment personally as I haven't become victim to it on either type of drive. However, I did find this website which might be of interest to you; it was to me. Merely removing it is hardly a good fix and seemingly doesn't work for the most part.. However, from what I've found... ..seems a logical conclusion to draw. (Quote Source: http://forums.tweakguides.com/archive/index.php/t-2316.html)
It would detect it yes, but do S-ATA drives work in PIO mode? That principle is both the reason starforce works, and part of the reason that it destroys CD drives.
Hmm, maybe I'll just get a USB DVD Writer. Not ideal, but at least that doesn't get destroyed by Starforce.
Yeah, that seems like the only feasible way of doing it.. I doubt StarForce will make much of an appearence on future games though.. At leats I hope not. :-/
Well, I think Ubisoft dropping it was the watershed, but nonetheless there are developers like Nadeo that have a fanatical devotion to the technology. None of my hard drives sit in the 3.5" bays in my case, so perhaps this is a sign to do the same with my DVD drive. As luck would have it, I have a spare, an LG GSA-4163BA I put in my old PC shortly before I got my X2.
I'd not heard of them.. which games do they do? Lucky you had the spare drive then, although the NEC was a far superior drive to the LG.
You think so? I've not had any problems with either, and the performance seems about equal. The NEC is perhaps a bit quieter, but that's it. Lol the NEC cost me £25, the LG £44, and I only bought them 6 months apart.
Yes, NECs are, for the most part, better drives than LGs. However, personally, I have an older LG writer which has burnt thousands of discs without fail for me. I have a few other drives (i forget the makes/models off the top of my head) lying about, but until this one fails, I'm going to stick with it. I never spend more than £30 on a drive (give or take a few quid) but I needn't to get a decent drive..
Back in 2001 I think it was, I paid £90 for an acer 40x20x10 CD-writer. It broke after 2 weeks, it was warranty replaced with an identical benq model, which also broke after 3 weeks. I didn't bother replacing it again and suffered the £90 loss. I waited until my next PC two years later before getting another burner. That drive was pretty dump too, but it still works today, and I recently installed it in my grandad's PC. Matshita SW-9581 CD speed was 32x12x8 and DVD speed was 12x2x1, Minus discs only! it did do DVD-RAM though, at 1x speed! The LG was what I replaced that with, and god that was luxury by comparison! The first drive I had, a Toshiba 32x6 DVD-ROM still works, just, but the tray mechanism sounds like fingernails down a blackboard, I'm amazed it still works.
Lol, I haven't been into burning long enough to go through any drives. This LG (GSA4120B) has kept going since I joined in... Feb 06. But eugh, Mashita Hehe
To be honest, despite the fact that's aD's main focus, I'm not anywhere near as well up on burning than I am other PC hardware, mainly because I hardly ever burn discs, I download stuff and store it on copious hard drives.
The reason I came to aD was to do with burning issues. I basically asked my questions, got my answer then started answering others questions, reading up etc and it kind of a snowball effect.. look where I am now. lol. I'm not too into other PC hardwares really but I know enough basics to answer simple things
