Starforce Question

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pigwalk

[H]F Junkie
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Hey, I was stuck on a machine all day at work today, wouldn't read any opticals whatsoever. Tried another optical from the shop, no go. Got one drive on slave behind the boot hdd, still wouldn't read them. Recognized all the drives fine, but would not recognize any data off any of the drives. Tried booting off the opticals, still no dice. Sounds like starforce, but would starforce also affect my ability to boot off the drives?

-wil


Mod Edit: Working off other thread here : http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1080884 ~ gl :) Papa-Ming
 
Check for Adaptec EZ-CD Creator. I once saw this often. I believe under device manager you would see an error code 113 or something regarding could not load driver or device.

Info.


CDROM and Recorder no longer work in Windows 2000/XP

This information applies to the following product(s):
Easy CD Creator Deluxe 4x Suite, Standard or Deluxe EditionsEasy CD Creator 5.0x Suite, Basic or Platinum EditionsWinOnCD 3.7.548 (and above)Video Pak 5.0
This information applies to the following Operating System(s):
Windows 2000Windows XP

To Recover Lost Drives:You should uninstall Easy CD Creator, if it is installed, through Windows Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. To do so:

A. Go to "Start" then "Settings" then select "Control Panel"B. Double Click "Add/Remove Programs"C. Uninstall Easy CD Creator Platinum and/or Adaptec Easy CD Creator

WARNING: THE NEXT STEPS INVOLVE EDITING YOUR SYSTEM REGISTRY. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU EXPORT YOUR REGISTRY (STEP 3) BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY EDITING (STEP 4). EDITING YOUR REGISTRY INCORRECTLY CAN CAUSE IRREPARABLE SYSTEM DAMAGE. WE RECOMMEND THAT IF YOU DO NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE EDITING YOUR REGISTRY THAT YOU SKIP THE FOLLOWING STEPS.

1) Log on with Administrative Privileges
2) Open the Registry Editor:
a) Go to "Start" then select "Run"
b) Type "regedit" and click "OK"
3) Backup you registry by:
a) Highlight "My Computer" by clicking on it once.
b) At the top of the page you should see "File"(Win XP) or "Registry" (Win 2000), click on this and then select "Export Registry File"
c) The following screen will allow you to select where you would like to save this backup and what file name you would like to save it as.
d) Please note at the bottom of the screen where it says export range "All"; this should be selected to ensure your entire registry is backed up completely.
e) Give the File a name and Click on the "SAVE" button (this will bring you back to the registry editor)
4) Remove the Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values by:
a) Expand the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" key (looks like a folder) by double clicking it.
b) Expand the "SYSTEM" Key
c) Expand the "CurrentControlSet" Key
d) Expand the "Control" Key
e) Expand the "Class" Key
f) Please look for a key containing the following string of letter and numbers:{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
g) High light this key by left clicking once on it
h) On the right hand side you are looking for "Upperfilters" and "Lowerfilters", once you find these please delete them by high lighting (left clicking on them once) and then right clicking on them and choosing "delete"
5) Restart your computer.
6) Your CD-ROMs should be back.
You can reinstall Easy CD Creator at this time.
For more information on this issue see Microsoft knowledgebase Article ID: Q270008 at:http://search.support.microsoft.com/
 
Nope, not Starforce nor Adaptec related. Thinking it may be windows DRM related. Any other ideas?

-wil
 
If you can't boot off of them, it's a hardware or BIOS issue. Windows and what not isn't even loaded at boot to even affect the drives. Try using different discs?
 
ryan_975 said:
If you can't boot off of them, it's a hardware or BIOS issue. Windows and what not isn't even loaded at boot to even affect the drives. Try using different discs?
Agreed. I missed the not in OS part of your post. Down to either hardware jumpers on your drives or bios options. Make sure that they are set to Auto and not Disabled in the main section of your bios.
 
Everything shows fine in Bios and in Device Manager. Just doesn't read anything off the drives or boot from them. Jumpers are on cable select, tried them on both IDE controllers. The strange thing was the drive I know for a fact that works doing the exact same on this machine. Tried multiple discs to no avail. Added another HDD on it without a problem, read and wrote files just fine. Just opticals seem to be affected. Just for the record, it's a Dell Inspiron 725n with an Asus A7XN-LA I believe, one of the boards manufactured from Dell. The bios on the board won't update, but from what I read about that mobo it seems like that's not a bad thing. Been at it all day at the shop to no avail.

-wil
 
I don't think I'd have this job If I wouldn't have thought of and tried that already :) I'm at a total loss here, going to try and moving this over to the opticals forum, thanks guys.

-wil
 
pigwalk said:
I don't think I'd have this job If I wouldn't have thought of and tried that already :) I'm at a total loss here, going to try and moving this over to the opticals forum, thanks guys.

-wil

are you using 80c or 40c cables? I've heard that some opticals drive fritz out on 80c cables. Now I don't know if that's true, but it's worth a thought
 
Well, booting off the optical takes windows and starforce completely out of the picture.

There are rumors of some drives being physically damaged by Starforce. I have no idea if this is true.

-Larry
 
TechLarry said:
Well, booting off the optical takes windows and starforce completely out of the picture.

There are rumors of some drives being physically damaged by Starforce. I have no idea if this is true.

-Larry

I don't see this as being possible unless Starforce is altering the firmware. If so than there'd be a hell of a lot of Hard drives being damaged too and people would be pissed if their new game ruined their system.
 
I have the same problem with a Samsung Writemaster. Can't boot off it and in XP cd's show as having no data. This started happening not long after installing a Starofrce game.
No Starforce on my PC now and am using both a Liteon DVD and Liteon DVD-RW with no problems. The Samsung is NFG and I only bought it about 6 months ago.
 
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