Need help installing a game I just bought.

[LW07]

It even does this when I try to get to it in safe mode.

Another DVD-based game called Just Cause did this to me as well a couple of months ago.

I'll insert the DVD into the drive and it won't autorun. When I rightclick the DVD drive Icon to try to get to setup.exe to force it to install, it'll cause MyComputer to quit responding and when I use CTRL+ALT+DEL and try to end the task, it'll bring me to a blank desktop with no icons and I'll have to restart the computer by hitting the power button. Sometimes, if I wait long enough, the icons will come back, and then I'll rightclick the DVD drive icon in MyComputer only to have the same thing happen to me again.

The thing is, three of my DVD based games, Day of Defeat: Source, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and Call of Duty 2, will run perfectly on the drive.

Even when I use a disk cleaner and clean the Just Cause and Unreal Anthology disks, I still have the same problem. It'll even do this in safe mode.

My DVD drive is a Lite-on SOHC-5236V drive.

What could be the problem? Do you think I need to get a new DVD drive? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[mundane]

I was going to suggest your issue might be a specific type of copy protection scheme that is present on those titles, but it appears Unreal Anthology was released without (?!) any.

Trying to run it on Vista?

Sometimes you'll get bad disks.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: mundane
I was going to suggest your issue might be a specific type of copy protection scheme that is present on those titles, but it appears Unreal Anthology was released without (?!) any.

Trying to run it on Vista?

Sometimes you'll get bad disks.

My operating system is Windows XP Home Edition w/Service Pack 2.

I'm starting to get the idea that it may be a bad DVD drive. Would it be worth it to get another DVD drive in hopes of fixing the problem? Or should I do something else?

Because it'll do well with some DVDs, but those two DVDs won't work for some reason, and it'll probably do it again with another DVD-based game out there somewhere.

CD based games and media will work fine, though.

 

[LW07]

I really don't know if it's bad disks or if the DVD drive itself is failing somehow. Which one is most likely the problem, given that the DVD drive will read some DVD stuff alright and that CDs will be perfect on it, but some DVDs like those two games I mentioned will freeze the computer up? I don't want to buy a new DVD drive only to find out that it wasn't the problem.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Try it on a friends PC.

 

[LW07]

I updated the firmware on my DVD drive and still no luck.

 

[So]

Sounds like explorer is crashing on you...if you go to run in task manager and type explorer.exe you should be able to get windows going again, if I understand you right.

Also, my guess would be that there is some clip that windows is trying to thumbnail for a preview that is the cause, since I had that with xvid in the past.

 

[imported_Imp]

I was going to say firmware, but if it doesn't work, have you tried another drive? If you have an extra drive lying around, stick it in. If it still locks up then it's probably something installed causing problems. Otherwise, it's the drive. From personal experience, I had a craptastic Lite-On (brand new SHW-1635) that locked the system up if it couldn't read a disc. However, turns out the POS was in fact defective, my entire system was buggy at the time thanks to a defective SATA controller on my mobo. So it could be the drive or something installed.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: So
Sounds like explorer is crashing on you...if you go to run in task manager and type explorer.exe you should be able to get windows going again, if I understand you right.

Also, my guess would be that there is some clip that windows is trying to thumbnail for a preview that is the cause, since I had that with xvid in the past.

Yes, that's exactly what's happening. It only happens with some DVD games, but not with others. CD games work fine, though.

How can I make windows explorer stop crashing on me so I can get my games to install? Even with safe mode, it still does this.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: Imp
I was going to say firmware, but if it doesn't work, have you tried another drive? If you have an extra drive lying around, stick it in. If it still locks up then it's probably something installed causing problems. Otherwise, it's the drive. From personal experience, I had a craptastic Lite-On (brand new SHW-1635) that locked the system up if it couldn't read a disc. However, turns out the POS was in fact defective, my entire system was buggy at the time thanks to a defective SATA controller on my mobo. So it could be the drive or something installed.

I have a SATA Hard Drive installed on my system, but my DVD drive is a IDE drive. Was your whole system buggy due to the defective SATA controller, or was it just like what I'm experiencing, that everything ran well until you stuck in a DVD that your Lite-on couldn't read and the system would then lockup?

And no, I don't have an extra DVD drive lying around.

And let me add another description.

The DVD Drive Icon itself will show that it recognizes the disk, but trying to click it will crash Windows Explorer.

Even when I took a program and disabled all non-microsoft shell extensions, I still got no luck.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: LW07

Originally posted by: Imp
I was going to say firmware, but if it doesn't work, have you tried another drive? If you have an extra drive lying around, stick it in. If it still locks up then it's probably something installed causing problems. Otherwise, it's the drive. From personal experience, I had a craptastic Lite-On (brand new SHW-1635) that locked the system up if it couldn't read a disc. However, turns out the POS was in fact defective, my entire system was buggy at the time thanks to a defective SATA controller on my mobo. So it could be the drive or something installed.

I have a SATA Hard Drive installed on my system, but my DVD drive is a IDE drive. Was your whole system buggy due to the defective SATA controller, or was it just like what I'm experiencing, that everything ran well until you stuck in a DVD that your Lite-on couldn't read and the system would then lockup?

And no, I don't have an extra DVD drive lying around.

Nope, whole system was screwy and prone to lock-ups. My HDD was SATA and DVD IDE, but the controller kept screwing up causing Windows to BSOD to death. Not only that, but the entire machine didn't make it past POST cause of it. Had to move to an IDE HDD to bypass the problem (didn't want to RMA and didn't want want to believe it was such a big problem early on). In the end, I'm not sure how badly that issue hurt the defective DVD drive's problems. Even so, a 'normal' DVD drive shouldn't crash the entire system. My RMA'd optical drive didn't read a bunch of discs either, but all it did was keep trying and clicking. Windows never crashed (this was after I bypassed the SATA problem).

By the way, what's in your system? What you're describing (hanging, but no BSOD) sounds like what So described: explorer's hanging. This use to happen with my first system (Pentium 1 150), but I doubt you're system's that old... Have you checked Eventviewer in control panel (admin tools)? There should be a bunch of errors coinciding. Either way, your drive can't read the discs. The hang is just making things worse. If you have $30 lying around, just grab a new drive.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: Imp

Originally posted by: LW07

Originally posted by: Imp
I was going to say firmware, but if it doesn't work, have you tried another drive? If you have an extra drive lying around, stick it in. If it still locks up then it's probably something installed causing problems. Otherwise, it's the drive. From personal experience, I had a craptastic Lite-On (brand new SHW-1635) that locked the system up if it couldn't read a disc. However, turns out the POS was in fact defective, my entire system was buggy at the time thanks to a defective SATA controller on my mobo. So it could be the drive or something installed.

I have a SATA Hard Drive installed on my system, but my DVD drive is a IDE drive. Was your whole system buggy due to the defective SATA controller, or was it just like what I'm experiencing, that everything ran well until you stuck in a DVD that your Lite-on couldn't read and the system would then lockup?

And no, I don't have an extra DVD drive lying around.

Nope, whole system was screwy and prone to lock-ups. My HDD was SATA and DVD IDE, but the controller kept screwing up causing Windows to BSOD to death. Not only that, but the entire machine didn't make it past POST cause of it. Had to move to an IDE HDD to bypass the problem (didn't want to RMA and didn't want want to believe it was such a big problem early on). In the end, I'm not sure how badly that issue hurt the defective DVD drive's problems. Even so, a 'normal' DVD drive shouldn't crash the entire system. My RMA'd optical drive didn't read a bunch of discs either, but all it did was keep trying and clicking. Windows never crashed (this was after I bypassed the SATA problem).

By the way, what's in your system? What you're describing (hanging, but no BSOD) sounds like what So described: explorer's hanging. This use to happen with my first system (Pentium 1 150), but I doubt you're system's that old... Have you checked Eventviewer in control panel (admin tools)? There should be a bunch of errors coinciding. Either way, your drive can't read the discs. The hang is just making things worse. If you have $30 lying around, just grab a new drive.

I have these specs:

AMD Opteron 180 Dual Core processor
2 gigs of ram
ATI Radeon X1900XT 512mb
Abit KN8 Motherboard
Seagate 7200.9 SATA II 400GB Hard Drive
PC Power and Cooling 510-SLI PSU

I checked EventViewer and clicked on the properties and it gives me this description:

"The device, \Device\CdRom0, has a bad block."

That was when I was trying to install Unreal: Anthology. I went back to January 1st when I tried to install Just Cause(the other game that did this to me), and I got the same description as well.

 

[LW07]

I'm also getting these two errors in the Eventviewer.

Error 1: An error was detected on device \Device\CdRom0 during a paging operation. This is a warning error or whatever it's called.

Error 2 has it's source in the ATAPI according to Eventviewer. It says this: The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort1, did not respond within the timeout period.

So, with those two errors, plus the bad block error, and with every effort I throw at the problem failing, what is my real problem and how can I solve it?

 

[imported_Imp]

Googled the errors, seems like it is synomonous with dirty/scratched/bad disks or unrecognized formats. If the discs work in other systems, then it pretty much has to be the drive.

Also I did a search on the model, for a combo drive it looks like it just doesn't recognize those discs and windows/drive is handling it poorly by hanging up. Not surprising since I ran through two drives last year (Lite-On 1635 160P6S) and both didn't read half of my DVDs. In the end, I got a LG H22 for $30 after Christmas. Now, there isn't a single problem. Either way, you've already updated the firmware to no avail, so if you can skip a case of beer, just grab a new DVD RW, and stick it in an extra drive bay. If you troubleshoot for a few weeks, maybe you can get windows to stop messing up through some luck or a clean install, but the discs still probably won't read. Good luck.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: Imp
Googled the errors, seems like it is synomonous with dirty/scratched/bad disks or unrecognized formats. If the discs work in other systems, then it pretty much has to be the drive.

Also I did a search on the model, for a combo drive it looks like it just doesn't recognize those discs and windows/drive is handling it poorly by hanging up. Not surprising since I ran through two drives last year (Lite-On 1635 160P6S) and both didn't read half of my DVDs. In the end, I got a LG H22 for $30 after Christmas. Now, there isn't a single problem. Either way, you've already updated the firmware to no avail, so if you can skip a case of beer, just grab a new DVD RW, and stick it in an extra drive bay. If you troubleshoot for a few weeks, maybe you can get windows to stop messing up through some luck or a clean install, but the discs still probably won't read. Good luck.

I've been thinking that my DVD drive may have been the culprit, and it seems that may be the case, as you say that your Liteon drives didn't read half your DVDs, and that's what's happening to me. I think I'll do as you say and grab a new DVD-RW(something other than a Liteon), and go from there. What would be a good DVD-RW drive?