New way to defeat starforce 3.6
 

Hi everybody.I suggess to make this thread some kind of guide how to bypass the starforce protection.I will tell the way it works for me and i hope that this will work for other people also.My harddisk is SerialATA so i have only optical drives attached to my IDE controller.So to play starforce protected games i just disable my IDE controller in device manager ( The whole IDE controller not the optical drives ) , mount the image in daemon tools 4 and play.After playing i just enable again the IDE controller and my optical drives appear again.No need to restart.I tested this with Prince of persia T2T and in a few hours i will test it with X3 Reunion also.I will be very happy if somebody with sata harddrive can test this way with other starforce games.

Update: This trick works for X3 Reunion also.

heres an interesting thing that happenned to me: i installed the game from dt4 drive
turned off pc
unplugged cd/dvd roms
start pc
check if game works, it worked
shutdown pc
plugged in cd/dvd drives
start pc
goto device manager
on the wiwv tab there is a sahow hidden devices
click it
there will appear a non plug and play thing in the hardware list
look for starforce
there should be 4 of them
uninstall all
and after it restart
pc rebooted
mount image into dt4, play the game whit your cd/dvd drives NOT plugged out
thats it
works after it to
no changes needed
I hope thios will work for other people too

@neptun: Nice, but I haven't a S-ATA-HDD :(

@LostS0uL: Your method sounds very good. But can you make a screenshot of the step please?
That will be very helpful!
I haven't any Starforce-protected games yet. But I want to buy Prince Of Persia: TTT in a few days. So I want to be prepared for it :)
And do you know if it helps, when I disable my optical drives via BIOS, instead unplugging them??

And which game did you installed?

Greets

I also have a SATA drive, tried the same technique with no result:rolleyes:

Pictures...
 

Show Hidden Devices:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/7134/vive11yt.jpg



My SATA & PATA HDDs + DVDWriter+Alcohol 120% Virtual Drive:
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/1489/vive20fr.jpg

Expanding Non-PnP Devices to reveal 4 StarForce Devices....
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/5479/vive37rg.jpg

I have not tested it though but I am looking for a correct way to get rid of SF drivers/Devices from my system...

Tried
 

Not all drivers wants to uninstall whats more after every uninstall system asks to reboot and it doesnt resolve the problem of Worms Mayhem

You can uninstall the drivers through registry ... saves some time:

go to \HKEY_LOKCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Serv ices

there are folders that start with "sf" (e.g. "sfsync02" or "sfvfs02" and so on ... these are the keys for the Starforce drivers ... simply delete them and optional delete the files in the folder C:\Windows\system32\drivers\ as well ...
hope i could help with that.

Disabling in BIOS doesn't help.I tried it.

Did you disable the whole IDE Controller in IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers section in device manager?For me personally i need to disable NVIDIA nForce4 Parallel ATA Controller for this to work but if you use standard drivers you may have more than one device ( for example you can have Primary channel and secondary channel ) and in this you need to disable both of them for this to work.

Ok I did what LostS0uL suggested, which seems to nearly work fine. The only problem I'm running into is that, even though I can delete the files in system32/drivers... but they keep being reinstalled (or return in some other way) after say 2 seconds, causing all starforce stuff to be reinstalled...any idea on how to avoid the driver files to return?

Still won' twork here
 

I did as you said and was successful in removing the 4 drivers. restarted. Mounted in Daemon 4.00 but when i try to load the game it gives me this error: "Insert the POP3 Disc into another drive and press Retry". I then went into the registry and deleted those keys and retried and still not working. when i install, it gives me the option of selecting differnet languages at the beginning. So might be a european version?
I also tried to burn it with Alcohol and it didn't work. I don't know how to proceed either. Is there anyway to burn the file?

As i know there is no way to burn DVD image of game protected with starforce 3 and it to work.If the game is on CDs there is a way to burn working CD of starforce 3 game but you need to patch the image with a special tool made by a warez group and then burn it the way they say.Warez is not allowed here so i will stop now because i am not sure that mentioning the name of this tool is legal.If you want to know more you can send me a Personal Message.

As far as I know the tool aint a warez group tool.


And the guy before you is obviously a warez user. Since he wants to know how to burn an image rather than getting it work instead of his original.

here is the deal

made an image in al120

pluged evrything off,

maut in dt4, tried antiblaxx, sfcure, actualy tried evrything i could find

when i start the game, he sad somthing about disc key doesnnt corespond with the disc in the drive :( whyy, it' s the write key


what should i do??

P.S. sorry4E

maybe your image is not good enough.Some drives cannot read DPM info correctly.The decision is to download .mds file with good dpm info for the game and replace the .mds file from your image with the good .mds.In the topic for Prince of persia the two thrones you can find a link to a german website with .mds files for different games.Good luck.

Suggestion
 

This is just logical suggestion. Facts:

• games use 3/4 SF drivers for copy protection when they start
• when they start, they replace all the registry values of driver services in HKEY_LOKCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ & all the sf driver files in sys32

So, 2 tactics:

• try to deny permissions 4 these files & reg values
• some bruteforcing prog to replace the driver files & their reg values every couple of seconds or less

& ur asking "replace with what"?! I say replace reg path with path to sfdrvxx.sys with path to sfcure01.sys & sf driver sys files crap with sfcure01.sys (renamed to their name, of course!)

This is just theoreticising, dunno does it work, so anyone can make bruteforcer/ hasn't got so complicated user, group & permission structure, should try this and post the results here

hmm
 

I have two IDE controllers : Primary and Secondary.
I can only deactivate the secondary IDE controller. How deactivating the primary controller ? Help me plz.
Unplugging it would be to enervating, so plz help me !! :(

No help
 

Thanks 4r ur help...But no result.I have Brian Lara Cricket 2005.It has the Starforce v3......I tried every thing but no help.It keeps checking 4r the disc....I hav a SATA HDD.But no help.This game is making go wild......Its been pissing me off for the past 24hrs....So i hav finally turned 2 this so tat some1 can giv me some help.....Plz some1 help me out.....

hi!

i tried i think all programs and all ways to trick starforce but it doesnt help when he is trying to check the cd/dvd he just restarts my comp after a few secs. does anybody know what i can do?

Problem with 2thrones...maybe RAID??
 

Hi,
Been trying to get POPT2T working and have mounted image in daemon tools, then disabled parallel ATA controllers, and when it loads (says it is checking disk) it restarts my PC?!?!?! I have RAID working could this be a problem??:confused: Then we tried on another PC and we had to disable primary and secondary controllers and still no luck thought th PC does not restart like mine?

Any IDEAS and I need help!!!:(

Very strange.For me personally and a friend of mine it is working for POP T2T and X3 Reunion when IDE controller is disabled.When i tried to use alcohol 120% virtual device the starforce freezes when checking disk.With daemon tools 4 and all emulation options on it is working.About restarting when checking disk this is not a single case as i know.It sometimes happens even if optical drives are unplugged.I hoped that the SATA trick will work for more people but it looks like i am wrong.Maybe it works only with nforce 4 chipsets.I don't know what to think.

Edit: For me it is working with or without RAID array in the system.I have tested it.

I made a little research and a few experiments for the problem with PC freezing or rebooting during disk verification of starforce.Often this is caused by emulations and virtual device of alcohol 120%.To fix this it is needed first to uncheck all things in Emulation and Extra emulation in File->options menu of alcohol 120% and second disable the alcohol 120% virtual device by setting Number of virtual devices ( File -> options->Virtual device ) to 0.There is no need to uninstall alcohol 120% completely.

jesus...

in middle of "Checking Disk" hes stop...

WHAT I HAVE TO DO!?

plz help me

SF pretty much hooks into every necessary stuff it needs and doing some really funny stuff to prevent you from tampering with its drivers. Therefore, it's not an easy task, but it can be done;)

hi

ive maked the image of POP T2T in ALCOHOL with a DPM high
uninstalled the alcohol completely
emulated the mds in d-tools 4.0.3
set all options on
uninstaled all drivers of starforce in device manager
and the game keep freezing in CHECK DISK

maybe i have to uninstall the IDE CONTROLER too?

thx for all

It looks like this trick with disabling of ide controller works only if you have nforce3 or nforce4 chipset motherboard.If not the only way that works 100% is to physically unplug your optical drives.

hmm... but i dont haVE NFORCE 4... so i did unplug physically my cd unit... cause in this pc dont have DVD/rom...

maybe the game are crashing because of that? ill try now in my pc where have a dvd/cd rom...

sorry my bad english...

thx for all

i can't disable my IDE controllers. i can only Uninstall them. I don't want to do that.

you can uninstall starforce drivers from your command prompt...
Just open amir.exe in command prompt and a screen will come up that tells its usage. i cant tell exactly what is says because i have removed POP:t2t from my computer some time ago.. and im not going to install it aggain until there is 100% working way to start it without pluging out cables from optical drives every time i want to play... :mad:

These are mine ide\atapi controlers.. my primary hd is on SATA.. and second Hd is on Ide... and i have 3 ide optical dirives.. so does any one have a solution with disabling controlers.. i can disable everything except 1st ultra ata storage controllers and 2nd Primary ide channel
http://kill.addr.com/untitled.JPG

Can any one confirm that thing with disabling starforce drivers from device manager when chosing show hidden devices.. does that work?? :confused:

And i was just wondering... is there a way to replace new starforce with the one what was working with StarForce Nightmare?? (etc.. replace starforce from POP:t2t with the one from SplinterCell, and play POP?!) :confused: :confused:
take care all :)

There is no way to replace new starforce with old one and play.For the disabling of IDE controllers this will work only if you have nforce motherboard and windows is installed on the sata harddisk.

I wonder if I do this the right way...

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7...led5nv1.th.jpg

Anyway I'm able to play the game with this... thanks a lot.


Only... if somehow my PC's power were cut off while the controller is still disabled... will it damaged my computer?

And what about the first one?? It can't be disable... there is only Uninstall option for it... what happened if I accidently uninstall that one... and any other two??

By the way thanks a lot... StarForce 3 succesfully bypass...

I have Asus p4p800 motherboard :mad: :mad: :mad:

you can not disable the first because your harddisk is attached to it.Do not try to disable or uninstall this channel.If the other channels are disabled and there is a power off nothing wrong will happen.you will just need to enable them again after you started windows again.And by the way you can try to disable only the parallel ATA controller in device manager.this should be enough.

Thanks... I won't have any worries anymoe then... thanks a lot... :)

I maybe found the problem for the rebooting thingy. I've got a AMD64 CPU and had normal WindowsXP installed and had the reboot problem but since i have Windows XP64 it works with daemon tools and the ide deactivatet in device manager.

Hi all!

First, thx 4 the help, but i have a problem with it. I removed the SF drives from Device Manager, and renamed the strings in the keys in the registry.

Si I start the game, and i get an error:

"To install the application, you must have administrator privileges on your computer."

HAve anyone had this message? Of course i am admin on the comp. Can sb help me?

Thx

Ps: Sry for my english, i'm from Hungary...

re
 

i have 2 harddiscs and i have primary and secondary IDE if i disable secondary IDE my 2 Drives DVD/CDRW are disabled but my secondary HD is also disabled i've tried with alcohol and DT4 nothing works i disabled by Device Manager
I've been searching a lot i haven't tried this solution but the only one who seems to work in this case for those who don't have nForce Parallel or have this problem like me the only way is to:
Uninstall POP3 Starforce & Alcohol
Mount the game with DT4 install but dont open it
Turn off and pc disable IDE
Turn on PC and run the game you will have to reboot it again due to starforce drivers...
This way works 100% but its boring because when u want to play u have to Disable IDE manually and Re enable IDE so u have to have PC Open....
I hope it will be a NO-CD/DVD Fix like Prince of Persia Warrior Within which has one ST Fix.......

Ok if anyone is interested heres the way I got by the protection:
a) You need a good image. I tried out one for a month and didn't work, then I got a different one and it worked. Find one which has been tested on other pcs and works.
b) Dont mount the image from the dvd, mount it from the hard disc instead.
c) Dont have any other vitrual drive on the pc except Daemons

Now:
1) mount game & install (tried with Daemon4 all options off)
2) run SFAFSB.exe(sfcure)
3) press install sfcure drivers
4) press Start sfcure
5) start SfNightmare
6) disable node
7) disable cd
Here is what was different on my pc. Everyone got it right with node and cd, but mine needed: Disable ATA too, otherwise I got "insert POP 3 into another drive" error
8) disable ATA(varies from pc to pc)
9) start the game

I wrote this guide cause I've gotten frustrated trying to get this damn game to work and want to help out anyone who hasn't got it to work yet.
Tested and works with Prince of Persia 3. Will soon test with Splinter Cell too.
I got the images from friends who rented the games and made the images, so I can't exactly tell you which version on the net works!
Good luck!

Oh and after the game finishes, enable ATA, enable node, enable CD. works for me in this order

@Stepes
It is illegal to create images from rented games!
It is illegal for your friends to give you the images, unless you own the original games! And if you do own the original games (which I doubt you do) then you can create your own images!

You now have a one month ban! This will give you time to delete those images and purchase your own games!

Disabling Hardware is a pain in the ass!
 

This Seems to be workable. I will give this a Go tonight And see if I can't get a universal sloution.
One thing I will mention is you usually should Boot in Safe-Mode when removing Drivers from "X:/Windows/system32/" on your system Disk. Windows implements a file protection for Drivers & .DLLs and Developers have a similar protection available to them should they choose to use it. Which can lead to repeated steps.
Repeated Steps = Frustration = Playing with Original CD-Rom = Failure.