Aargh! I can't play Pirates!!!

[hentzau]

This is killing me!  I have the DVD version of Pirates, and my DVD drive won't recognize the disc!  If I try in on my laptop DVD drive, it works fine!

I'm going to start to disable stuff, see if I can isolate what the problem is...

Hm.  On a whim, I tried disabling DirectCD to see if that would help, and now I can't get any DVD's to work in the system!

Gah!

[marcain]

I've had this same problem.  From what I've gathered, it's due to my DVD drive (faster DVD drives not playing well with their copy protection).  Regardless, a no-cd patch is the only way I had been able to play, since their tech support hadn't been able to solve the problem.

Today, I received an email from Atari saying to replace my .exe with this
http://ftp://ftp.infogrames.net/patches/pirates/pirates-DVD-rpl.zip

Of course I'm at work so I haven't tried that yet myself.

[Redfive]

No CD patch here.  Thanks to the pirates for letting me play Pirates!

[hentzau]

Well, I can't even get my DVD drive to recognize the disc when it is inserted, so a noCD crack isn't going to help much.  The drive does read other DVD's.  I suspected the interactual player being a problem (my kids watch Disney DVD's on the system occasionally) so I removed that but no luck.

I'm going out to the car to get my work laptop and try that again...then I might call up my buddy and see if I can a) try my disc in his system and b) borrow his disc to try in mine.

[Scoop20906]

What kind of system / DVD player brand do you have?

I had the same problem with my Dell 8400. You can check out my solution here: http://consolegold.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3251

Not saying this will solve your problem but maybe it can point you in another direction.

Hope this helps and I feel your pain... :x

[hentzau]

Hmm.  It's a Dell 8250, with a Liteon DVD Rom.

Guess I'm calling Dell then, because the disc works like a charm in my laptop (again.)

[hentzau]

Yeah, like fun your names are Mary and Lee.  Just take my info and route me back to the US so I don't have to repeat everything twice! :evil:

[hentzau]

And transfer #3, this time to the DVD hardware support guys...think I'll make it to America yet?

[hentzau]

Nope. Still in India.

[Thin_J]

I hate outsourced tech support.

They took something that was at one time useful and made it frustratingly impossible to actually use.

The last person I spoke to from dell, while not in their tech support division,  spoke such badly garbled english that I (admittedly in a very unjustifiably rude way) gave my opinion of the person's grasp of the english language and hung up on them. At that point I had repeated how to spell my name five times and she was still not getting it right. When she spelled it with six wrong letters on the last try I snapped. I didn't even find out what it was she wanted exactly until about two weeks later. She was trying to sell me a warranty on my newly purchased PC. Even if she had spelled my name right on the sixth attempt I probably would have still hung up on her halfway through her offer.

They called me for something while I was eating my lunch at work which was already frustrating enough. To then have to sit there on my cell phone and go through that while my food got cold really fired me up.

[hentzau]

Well, I just got the cold shoulder by Dell.  I made it to the last level of hardware support, and apparently was still in India.  Anyway, the guy had me delete a couple of registry keys, go into setup, turn on all of my lock keys, Alt-E, F10, then escape.  Reboot, and still doesn't work.  At this point he said that in his opinion the software is written in a format that the DVD drive doesn't support, and that I should maybe go out and buy a new DVD drive.  :evil:  

He then told me that because the software didn't come from Dell, there was nothing more that hardware support could do for me, and that I could try software support.  So, I call the number, then the extension that he gave me, wait on the phone for like 10-15 minutes, give "Ron" all of my information, and I was told I was back at hardware support!  The knob gave me the wrong extension!

So now, I just got done talking to "Linda", and she told me that if I want to purchase a service contract, they would be happy to send me to a consultant that "may" be able to help me.

I hung up the phone.

I used to love Dell Customer service.  Even the level 1 guys knew their hardware and could help six ways from Sunday.  Now it's just a run-around.

So...looks like no Pirates for me!

[marcain]

To give you a little more info, my DVD drive would not read the game at all.  I returned my first copy, thinking it was blank/corrupt/whatever.

Then I put the second copy in my drive and it couldn't read that DVD either.  Only after being the stubborn fool that I am did I get lucky enough for the drive to finally read it and got the game installed.  I basically ejected the DVD, reseated the DVD, made sure it was clean, and tried again and again.

Unfortunately I got only one game in before the drive starting having trouble again, which is where the no-cd deal comes in.

Perhaps you could borrow a friend's drive, get it installed and use the no-cd or the file linked above...

If it makes you feel any better, the Atari tech suggested that I get a different drive too.   :roll:

Good luck.

[Caine]

actually, "ethan" called me today to give me a survey.  "it will only take 15 minutes".  both of which are bold faced lies of course, as i had to talk to him for almost an hour and ended up repeating a ton of stuff over and over.  

it's so bad around here, we have a long running joke about "steve in dallas" being tbe tech support guy.  it's sad really that Indians are getting to be known for this.

[Caine]

a little on topic stuff here.

you could make an image of the disc and then install from that.  you would need the no-cd fix of course, but it would get you up and running.  
you could also copy the installed directory over and hope that it contains everything that the game needs to run.  i did this with morrowind and it runs fine.
hope this helps.

[Clanwolfer]

a little on topic stuff here.

you could make an image of the disc and then install from that.  you would need the no-cd fix of course, but it would get you up and running.  
you could also copy the installed directory over and hope that it contains everything that the game needs to run.  i did this with morrowind and it runs fine.
hope this helps.

Don't think it would help if his system can't read the DVD.  It's not copy-protection kicking him on install time, it's that his system can't actually recognize the disc itself (i.e., no filesystem shown).

[hentzau]

a little on topic stuff here.

you could make an image of the disc and then install from that.  you would need the no-cd fix of course, but it would get you up and running.  
you could also copy the installed directory over and hope that it contains everything that the game needs to run.  i did this with morrowind and it runs fine.
hope this helps.

Don't think it would help if his system can't read the DVD.  It's not copy-protection kicking him on install time, it's that his system can't actually recognize the disc itself (i.e., no filesystem shown).

Yup.  That's the problem.  But I guess I could try and copy the disc from my laptop across my network and do the install that way, the try out a no-cd  fix...  I'll try that tomorrow.

[Caine]

i need to clarify that.  if it works on his laptop, make the image on that and transfer it over.  also, copying the installed directory should work as well.

[Jeff]

i need to clarify that.  if it works on his laptop, make the image on that and transfer it over.  also, copying the installed directory should work as well.

This was exactly what I was about to suggest. Glad you guys are all over it

Another option is to find a friend or relative's dvd reader that works, either internal or external and add it to the main PC temporarily, and image from there.

[jonsauce]

I had this same problem with my Sims 2 DVD and my drive.  It installed fine but I couldn't boot up the game.
Luckily my HL2 DVD worked fine.

[Laner]

%$*($% STEAM!!!!!11

....ooops, wrong thread.

[Caine]

another option that would work, although slow in comparison to the first two:
share out the dvd drive and map to it from the main pc.  

regarding the first option, to make an image:  you would need to do this with a tool like winiso or alchohol 120%.  you would mount the image with daemon tools or alchohol 120%.  this would work faster as it would be on the main pc and not having to deal with the network traffic.

[SkyRam]

I could install the game and now I get the same "no cd" in drive deal.  Its funny I even registered the darn thing.  Now they have my personal info so I can get spammed with all their stuff.  This makes an individual very angry. It makes me angry anyway!

[Zap Rowsdower]

This is killing me!  I have the DVD version of Pirates, and my DVD drive won't recognize the disc!  If I try in on my laptop DVD drive, it works fine!

I'm going to start to disable stuff, see if I can isolate what the problem is...

Hm.  On a whim, I tried disabling DirectCD to see if that would help, and now I can't get any DVD's to work in the system!

Gah!

Could you return it and get the CD version instead?

[SkyRam]

Well Ive tried the zip file and it keeps saying that the archive is corrupt.
I cant seem to find it on that site either. I didnt know Infrogames was associated with atari or firaxis. Sigh. First game I have paid full price for in years. Like thats going to happen again. Not. As for returning it for the cdrom I wish my store would do that but I have my doubts. Im going to try though. Wish I had bought it at Best Buy. I know they would have.

[hentzau]

This is killing me!  I have the DVD version of Pirates, and my DVD drive won't recognize the disc!  If I try in on my laptop DVD drive, it works fine!

I'm going to start to disable stuff, see if I can isolate what the problem is...

Hm.  On a whim, I tried disabling DirectCD to see if that would help, and now I can't get any DVD's to work in the system!

Gah!

Could you return it and get the CD version instead?

Well, yeah, I guess.  I got it through GoGamer, so I have to go through all of that hassle.  That's my last resort option.

[lokiju]

This is killing me!  I have the DVD version of Pirates, and my DVD drive won't recognize the disc!  If I try in on my laptop DVD drive, it works fine!

I'm going to start to disable stuff, see if I can isolate what the problem is...

Hm.  On a whim, I tried disabling DirectCD to see if that would help, and now I can't get any DVD's to work in the system!

Gah!

Could you return it and get the CD version instead?

Well, yeah, I guess.  I got it through GoGamer, so I have to go through all of that hassle.  That's my last resort option.

How bad do you want to play the game?  Seems like the best option.  Just tell them what happened and ask for the cd version in an exchange.

[Jolor]

How bad do you want to play the game? Seems like the best option. Just tell them what happened and ask for the cd version in an exchange.

Just don't hit them if they try to sell you a different DVD player.

[hentzau]

Well, the more I've been thinking about this, the more I'm thinking about buying a DVD burner, since I don't have one, and need a better way of backing up pictures and the like.  Might have to wait until after the holidays, unless I find a killer deal somewhere...

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Has anyone found a work around for this problem? I just got the game (the DVD Limited Edition version) today through a trade, and I keep having problems installing the game. I get a message halfway through installation telling me the the file proga~1.cab is corrupt. I read on one of the message boards that this might be due to certain DVD-drives rather than an actual corrupted disk. My drive is a Lite-on, also.