[t.foster73]

Findings Part 1

The game won't run from the USB drive if any cd/dvd drives are connected. Game installer tells you to put the dvd into another drive. However when I use starforce nightmare to disable the Secondary Master channel (where my dvd drive is) the game runs fine, but does take a little longer to check the disc (15 seconds or so as opposed to 1-3 seconds with no IDE optical drives present). It's as though it's trying to check if any IDE devices have been disabled. Now I'm going to see if it still works if the IDE optical drive is on the Primary Slave channel. Will report back soon.

p.s. Although I bought my USB housing to test this Starforce backup method, it does seem more efficient than having the DVD drive on an IDE channel. I may run all my drives like this from now on.