Place your original DVD in to start the game
 

When I start the sh4.exe to play the game it searches for the original dvd rom no doubt that is the security thingy for the game to run but when I already have the original in the drive and start the game only to be told that "hey you must have the original in the drive to proceed" (not in those words of course) has got me stumped :hmm:

Would that be because when starting up it's not reading the dvd rom correctly or is it some other issue at hand? That's the first time ever I've had that happen.

Have you had a problem with it before? That usually indicates that the computer can't read the copy protection on the disk. It happens sometimes with combination ROM/RW drives, which is why I have two optical drives in my computer. If this is a new installation, then it might just be an older drive that has problems with the copy protection. I'm pretty sure this game uses Securerom, and that has issues with certain brands/models of drives.

I had this very same problem and called ubisoft to try to find a fix, come to find out that there are some dvd\rw drives that the copy protection has issues with like my brand new memorex dvd\rw i bought just for this game.

Ubisoft told me i had to buy a plain jane (any brand will do) dvd rom not a burner, ok so i went out and picked up one (sane brand mind you) only just a reader and sure enough it worked, you might try it and see. ;)

Thanks for the replies guys. I have ASUS DVD RW but never had any probs with it reading protected games. It is intermittent so it doesn't do it every time.

perhaps they should bundle a read only DVD drive with SHIV or refund the extra cost to play their game :know:

AND a toptuned graphic card too ;)

I personally think that in this day and age there is NO reason to have to have the DVD/CD in the drive to play any game. Now they recommend you have just a DVDrom to play it? Give me a freaking break...

A lot of guys that are running newer systems may not have the extra IDE slots to run multiple drives (I know my dualcore board doesn't) so I'd be screwed as I only run a pioneer burner and am not forking over the $$ right now for a SATA optical drive.

It is reasons like this where I'm glad I wait for things to get ironed out before I buy most of my games.

Just my nickels worth...
Tool.

This is hardly new. I had this issue with Civ III back at least 5 years ago. The game would tell me to insert the original disk even when it was in my CD-R/RW drive. Since then, I always keep one ROM and one burner in the system. I've since upgraded to a DVD-ROM and a DVD‡R/RW drive, but still. You can connect 2 optical drives to one cable, and most full sized motherboards have 2 IDE connectors on there, so unless you're running a crazy amount of hard drives you should be able to do it.

It has nothing to do with SH4; it's just an issue with a common copy protection that's used on a lot of different games. It'll come up again with something else later.

I have this too. I dont think its the dvd burner issue, but mine is intermittent, 2nd time and its fine

Make sure you dont have the bonus material disk in the drive by accident :know:

Buy a whole cd drive just to play? Id just go with a... err i dont know if were allowed to talk about that stuff here.. but you know what I mean.. *ahem* :arrgh!:

I.. I mean someone I know does.. :arrgh!: with all of the games He owns. He just cant be bothered with swapping discs.

:up:

DVD Firmware Update Can Help
 

This has been mentioned before I believe. It worked for me.

I have a 2 year old BENQ R/W DVD and at first SH4 gave me the same security issues. But ... just before going out to buy a new unit I tried updating the firmware and Voila :sunny: works great now. Check your manufacturers website for updates. Maybe it will help you.

Regards

Bob C.

had to reformat last week,

reinstalled the game via my DVDRW drive, put in the mods i wanted and launched the game- NO CD/DVD in drive... i releized what ive done (having extensive experience with securm 7) put it in my dvd rom- worked great.

I hate s7 its almost as bad as star force, am hopeing ubi will do what THQ did, get rid of it and go back to nice old fashioned cd checks. Good thing i sprung for a board with DUAL IDEs (getting harder to find and we poor people need buring now days)or i would be a very angry puppy.

Another exemple of the CP who bother a regular / honest customer :damn:


Me too have a second DVD-Rom just for this issue, just in case .. It's really a shame !!

Well, the issue can be solved. Remove the damn protection :hmm:

It's a shame that people have to purchase another dvd rom drive to make games work :down: To me it's a step backwards. Hell just for the sake of it, they should've left it with Star Force. I had no hassles with that one!!!

Here is another question then. The people that download SH4 instead of buying it off the shelf, what do they use for the game to work??? They sure don't have an original DVD to put in the drive????????