Argh! Quake 4 won't load!

[agathodaimon]

So I installed Quake 4 yesterday (the DVD version) and whenever I try to load it up, it WON'T LOAD.
I get the hourglass for a few seconds and my DVD drive spins, but that's it. My hard drive light stays on solid.
It doesn't show up in the running applications in task manager, but it DOES show up in the running processes. I have to select "end process" in order to get the hard drive light to go off.
After about 2-3 minutes, I finally get an error message that pops up telling me that it can't find the DVD and to insert it into the drive.... But yet it's already in there.

I've tried uninstalling & reinstalling my video card drivers AND the game to no avail... I don't know what the deal is. My specs are:
ASUS A8N-E Motherboard
Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
1gb G.Skill PC3200
XFX Geforce 6800 GS 256mb
Xclio 450w power supply
Windows XP Pro with SP2.

 

[Slick5150]

It sounds like you are using a ... ahem... less than legitimate version of the game.

If that's not the case, then do you have Daemon Tools or Alcohol 110% installed? Some games won't run if you are using those

 

[agathodaimon]

I picked this copy up at Circuit City yesterday. It's legit.

I don't even know what Daemon Tools or Alcohol are... hehe. The only other program running in the background is Avast Anti-Virus... But it works with all of my other games.

 

[spacelord]

I had some weird issues with getting Quake 4 to load and run. I have the free DVD that I received by purchasing an eVGA 7800GT.
My DVD drive acts flakey sometimes so I just attributed it to that. After a reboot I was able to install the game.

It seems that Q4 doesn't require the DVD to be in the drive to play though.

 

[agathodaimon]

hmm, yeah it keeps asking me for the DVD whenever I try to load it up... But yet it's already in the tray.
This is a fairly new build, and it's been nothing but trouble so far... nv4_disp BSOD's and now this quake issue. I'm ready to just swap motherboards already..
I'd rather do that than have to sit through another format and Windows install and have it not work.. lol

I'm not giving up yet though. I want to swap the ram out with a friend's to see if it'll work. Can't do anything until after I get off work at 5:00.

 

[spacelord]

Did you apply the latest patches for Q4? Its been a couple weeks, and I applied the latest (beta?) for dual core or something like that, and I don't recall having to do a no-cd solution.. it just worked that way for me. If you don't have dual core I would apply the latest released patch then.

what about a no-cd crack for Q4? then you can safely tuck your DVD away.

 

[agathodaimon]

Do I need to launch the game to patch it, or can I download the patch and run it without loading the game?
Because I can't even get to a menu screen... I get nothing at all.

 

[agathodaimon]

FYI, it was my DVD drive all along... It's crapping out on me I guess, because I swapped it with a friend's drive and everything worked perfectly.
Thanks for all your help and suggestions! 8)