OK Gizzmoe...just a friendly hint.
You say you DONT believe that SF destroys drives.
You recommend people to get a cheap DVD rom drive so their loss is not a big one if SF destroys the drive.

Theres something fundamentaly wrong with these arguments.
If you recommend people to get cheap drives, you admit that SF might cause HW errors.

You cant have both.

I have read through this thread and I see some statements to people who state that their laptops drive died after installing SH3.

Theres a huge amount of smoke, but the fire is still hard to see.
However the chain of events makes me believe that SF is the likely problem.

Dear all.


just to share my experience about software killing (temporally) hardware.


When Mandriva(beurk, horrible name) was still called mandrake (good all times hey;), the cooker and the community release for the 9.1 and 10.0 where cd/dvd drives "killers"

When installing those release (actually 9.1) on a Dell poweredge SC600, I and a lot of user of the SC600 mounted with a cd/dvd LG reader exprienced an unwanted firmware overwritting at boot-up, killing (temporary) the reader. After escalating to Dell, a new firmware release was issue, fixing this unwanted behaviors.

Concerning HDD killer's firmware, this is quiet easy to imagine. A simple hack on a firmware is easy to do, modifiying the numbers for the head's parking location, or by modifying the physical mapping ....


Now, could it be possible that a cd/dvd firmware being "overwritte" in a way it prevent some "illegal" actions .... This coud be a way to explore ....

Are you saying that Mandrake had nothing to do with the problem and that it was just a firmware bug? Or was the new firmware a workaround for the Mandrake bug and the Mandrake devs later fixed the part that has caused this behaviour? Or was it a combination of both?

SC, we haven´t talked about that special detail yesterday, what exactly did Plextor find? Was it an actual hardware failure, were some parts broken, like loose parts inside the drive? If not, do you know if they have tried to reflash the firmware to see if that fixed the problem?

Gizzmoe wrote:

All that was told to me and I guess I didn't pump them for any more information than what was said to me...was the drive had gone through a complete drive failure. And the drive had shown no abuse and was as clean as a whistle and they could not understand what caused it. I assume there were no loose parts or he surely would have told me. The drive again was a Plextor 40x 12x 40x CDRW.

Ok. I think this firmware thing is a very important detail. Please be so kind and contact them again.

I have been reading this topic with great intrest,and I have 2 DVDs on my pc 1 a DVD ROM THE SECOND A dvd rw +/- and until recently found out I got 5 games installed on my pc with starforce installed inc sh3 and had no real problems with my drive unless I try and burn something with sh3 still in my dvd rom then i will get a message unknown error but once it's removed my roms work great.

I also read on somewhere on these forums if you use the SF removal tool as soon as you insert a game with SF it will re-insal itself correct me if am wrong.

I too don't beleave in piracy and all my games are legally bought in game stores for around £35-£40 so if I did come across a no cd .exe for a game I would install it just to protect my investments and hardware.

Sorry,

it was a combinations of the two.

Mandriva (mandrake) has reacted pretty quickly trought the cookers release. The official release was fully fix. Also, all upcoming release have now a security check. For deeper info, all kernel above 2.4.22-21mdk have been cured from this desease ....

Dell escalated the problem to LG, who did provided the fix .

The answer i did get by that time was:
- Mandriva coding were a little bit agresive in order to provide a larger compatibility footprint.
- LG readers at that time were not fully compliant to atapi commands.

Mandriva process to determine the type of the reader (cd-r, dvd-r or rw type) was to send an atapi command FLUSH_CACHE

Theory behind atapi command express that a simple reader decline this command answering with a fixe and stated error code, while writters did accepts this commands (flushing their cache memory).

But theory is one thing, and reality another. The LG readers firmware were badly code, and the fix order command for atapi UPLOAD_FIRMWARE was misleaded link to the FLUSH_CACHE command.

The results were pretty ugly: cache was not accesible, but the command was process to its end, so main memory was flush, and the drive end-up waiting for UPLOAD_FIRMWARE, witch never occurs ... leaving the drive in a unfinish and endless process. Reboot did not fix it, of course ...


Here was a list of the faulty models and drivers. Now, Just imagine that the SF drivers are issuing atapi commands, and that such misleading link are deeper than expected .... you can imagine now why some people may start to complain about having SF killing their cd-dvd readers .....

* COMPAQ CRD-8322B(CP1) (same model, but marked as LG; IBM Aptiva 2158-125)
* CRD-8400B (Dell Optiplex gx1)
* CRD-8400B (IBM PC 300 PL)
* CRD-8400B(mi)/CRD-8400C (COMPAQ)
* CRD-8402B/LG CRD-8480C (Dell XPS T650r)
* GCR-8481B (Dell Optiplex gx270; rom 1.06; date: Jun 2003)
* CRD-8482B (Dell Optiplex GX1)
* GOLDSTAR CDR-8482B (HP Vectra VL400; firmware 1.01)
* CRD-8482B (Dell Precision 220; rom 1.05)
* GCR-8523B (OEM in custom-built computer)
* GCC 4480B DVD/CD-R/RW/ROM (firmware 1.00; upgrading to 1.01 seems to workaround the problem)
* COMPAQ DRN8040B DVD/CD-ROM (Compaq M700 laptop)
* CRD-8481B (Compaq Deskpro EN P866)

CD-ROM LG identified to have the firmware mislead:

* GRC-8521B
* CRD-8522B
* CRD-8521B
* CRD-8520B
* CRD-8483B
* CRD-8480C
* CRD-8480B
* CRD-8400C
* CRD-8400B
* CRD-8322B
* CRD-8320B
* CRD-8240B
* CRD-8241B
* CRD-8160B
* CRD-8161B
* CRN-8240E
* GCD-R580B
* GCD-R560B
* GCD-R542B
* GCD-R540C
* GCD-R540B
* GCD-R520B
* GCD-R420B
* GCD-R400B
* GCD-R320B
* GCD-R300B
* GCD-R200B

Liste for CD-ROM LG not having the mislead:

* LG GMA-4020B DVD-RW
* LG GCC-4120B CD-RW/DVD
* LG CED-8080B DVD/CD-R/RW/ROM
* LG CED-8120B CD-RW
* HL-DT-ST GCC-4480B CD-RW/DVD (firmware 1.01 only)
* HL-DT-ST GDR8186B DVD-ROM
* HL-DT-ST GCE-8240B CD-RW
* HL-DT-ST GCE-8481B CD-RW
* HL-DT-ST GCR-8520B CD-ROM
* HL-DT-ST GCE-8520B
* CRD-8400C
* CRD-8402B
* CRD-8480C
* GCR-8481B
* CRD-8482B
* GCC-4480B


This list is an internal HP list for safe drives


o GCR-8080B firmware 1.03
o GCR-8082B firmware 1.03
o GDR-8161B firmware 0037
o GCR-8482B firmware 1.03
o GDR-8162B firmware 0018
o CED-8120B firmware 1.09
o GCC-4480B firmware 1.12
o GCR-8520B firmware 1.05
o GCR-8480B firmware 1.03
o GCE-8483B firmware 1.01


Now, if some people having their drives "killed" by SF protections can report if their model were from the list, this would give us some clues ....

Whohaa, seem we diverts a little bit from eels and subs ...
.... and forgive me for my "little niger" english, my mother tongue is french ...

Source in english: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/LgCdrom note that readers list is uncomplete
Source in french: http://www.presence-pc.com/actualite...e-resolu-1991/
Atapi commands : http://www.t10.org/ and http://www.t13.org/

:o :o :o :o

Whoops! That's a big goof......

I'm glad y'all were able to work things out and unlock this thread. Gives me hope for the human race. :up:

stratege, thanks for the very interesting informations! Earlier in this thread I´ve already speculated about bad firmware design and a "misinterpretation" of standard commands as the main cause for drive failures in connection with SF. Yes, it´s just a speculation, but it´s not too far-fetched.

SC, I think now you have a very good reason to contact Plextor again to find out if it maybe was a firmware problem.

Just to be on the safe side here, a.t.m I'm using a DVD reader to play SH3 but I'm planning to buy a NEC or dual layer DVD writer.

Will the resulted hardware change render SH3 useless or will Starforce destroy the drive or anyting?

Well, this is actually the big questions.

No-one, unless Starforce people, may answer you.

You may ask the builder company, you may ask SF, you may search forums .... but, also, you may keept open your desktop and switching between your old/new drive in conjonction of using the removal tools.

Thanks, Just trying to be helpfull instead of debating in a never ending thread.

But, the problem here, is SF denaying they send ATAPI commands to readers ....


You may also add any strange activity, link sounds, blinking lights ....

On my Plextor PX-704-A,:
when no disk are inserted, if the eject button is press and hold for more than 30 secondes, it start blinking. These is a max-reading-spedd bypass.
It is also a good way to test if the firmware is still ok.

That´s very unlikely. SC wrote "In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up."

Well, to prevent that simply remove the disk from the drive before you boot or reboot your PC.

Max-reading-speed bypass??? What does it do exactly?

Actually, it permit to put reading capability at max.

48x for reading a cd is sometimes reach. By doing this bypass, you enable this speed to be the "normal" speed. the reader goes at max speed, always....taking not care of the read errors ....


Now that you ask me this, this is looking very familiar to that "spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time" problem.