Actually there were a couple quite intruiging posts on egosoft x3 tech help page by an official starforce rep. Apparently they dont know much about slowing cds down to check for the copy protection, they start at the max speed, and they actually have it wait something like 15 mins to slow down. Some faster cd/dvd drives apparently screw the check up because they are too fast. A number of people were succeeding by using nero drive speed to cut down the speed of the drive. (rather than waiting the 15 mins for game to fallback on a slower speed then start). Rather oddly the starforce rep had been saying there's no way to slow drives, until someone found out the nero thing. So there are theories that because the starforce drivers interfear with the cd rom stuff, it spins it too fast sometimes, and hence the explosions (yours is not the first report of a cd explosion). It turns out that 52x for cds is just under the rotation at which cds will explode. In addition, an unbalanced cd may be more sensitive.


As for link to damage posts, just browse the official star force forum. Again, there's no way to tell if they are all legit, but I've seen posts similar elsewhere like on egosoft (x3 publisher). There are posts about dvd burner drives that totally cease to work, ones that cease to work until a firmware upgrade, ones that cease to work until xp is reinstalled, etc.

This comment was edited on Dec 15, 07:54.