As Creeping_Doom said, you can get the StarForce-free version of the game from GOG. Chances are that you're having a StarForce problem if you have Vista or Windows 7, but you could also have one with XP if your CD drive doesn't meet StarForce's requirements.
The alternative is to uninstall the StarForce drivers and use a NoCD for Still Life. If you have Vista or Windows 7, Windows probably blocked the StarForce drivers from installing in the first place so you won't need to uninstall it.
In case you were wondering, it's the old version of StarForce (StarForce v3) that's incompatible with Vista and Windows 7. The new version (StarForce v5) doesn't work the same way and doesn't have these problems with Vista and Windows 7 (though there's still the possibility of it not working with your CD drive, just as with other disc-based copy "protections"). Unfortunately installing StarForce v5 will
not allow you to play games that use StarForce v3. So you're left with the NoCD. I'm not familiar with the French patch that Creeping_Doom mentioned, but there are apparently different English NoCD's depending on whether you have version 1.0 or version 1.03 of the English version of the game.
If you download a NoCD and it's a .rar file, you'll need a program that can unzip .rar files, like 7-zip (free) or WinRAR. Whenever you download a free program, pay attention during the install to make sure it isn't installing a toolbar that you don't want.