Are you using the CD #2 (game CD) ? Since you have several CD drives, have you tried on both ? StarForce protection can in some very rare cases force the use of a drive instead of another one, but it should give you a message a bit more informative... What do you mean by "not connected" ? Is the IDE/SCSI cable completely unplugged ? Is the drive seen by Windows ? If nothing helps, make a report from the protection check dialog and send it to Larian support.
