Drive not recognizing disc

[Peni Griffin]

Two part question.

I'm doing a full reinstall after a hard drive crash. I have successfully installed everything through Freetime, but now the drive refuses to recognize the existence of the Apartment Life disk.

This is the second hard drive we've installed for this crash, not due to technical issues, but because my husband decided (after I'd already reinstalled almost everything) that the first one was too small. My attempt to reinstall the game on that drive also came to a halt when I tried to install the Apartment Life disc and the DVD drive from which it had been running for months wouldn't recognize it. Although I had been using that disk right up to the last session before the crash, I noticed that it had some cracks around the central hole and ordered a used one, which is the one I'm trying to install from now. When the drive didn't recognize it, either, I took it out, noticed some scratches and dirt, and cleaned it up with a clean handkerchief; still nothing. At this point I'm thinking I replaced a dud disk with a dud disk.

I also ordered a brand-new Mansion and Garden disk (from a different vendor), so I proceeded to try to install it, with the same result.

Is there something peculiar about the way these two disks are configured that could cause this effect? And if so, what do I do about it?

Obviously I'll contact EA if I have to, but I'd like to be armed with as much information as I can beforehand.

[Sunbee]

Obvious question is probably obvious, but have you made sure it's not the DVD drive?

[Peni Griffin]

Since everything up to Freetime installed from that drive, and I just installed another piece of software from it, it is unlikely to be the drive itself. We are also having a problem with the computer not recognizing that it has a sound card, and this may be a related issue; but it's hard to even guess at what kind of related issue, if we don't know what makes Apartment Life and Mansion & Garden different from previous expansion and stuff packs in this regard.

We just downloaded and installed 110 Windows updates, without changing this problem, though it fixed some of the other installation problems we've been having.

[Darby]

I don't know how helpful this will be, but I once had problems installing AL, and it wasn't until I washed it with soap and water that it would finally install. Prior to the wash, it looked pretty okay, even, but still needed a thorough cleaning, apparently.

I know - kind of a stretch, but perhaps worth a shot.

[Peni Griffin]

It shouldn't make any difference to a brand-new disk like M&G.

Due to an I.D. 10 T error while trying to correct a problem with the installation I did get, I had to do a full uninstall-reinstall of the game, and now I can't install Bon Voyage either. However, the problem manifests differently. The drive audibly tries to run it, then gives up; when I use the Start menu Run... tab, I can browse to the DVD drive and choose autorun, which then fails without comment or fuss. For Apartment Life and M&G, however, the light in the drive just blinks for awhile, then goes off. When I try to browse from the Run... tab, it prompts me to insert a disc into the drive; same result using Explorer. Neither of these has worked since the hard drive crash; BV did on the previous, flawed installation. Every other disc we've used in this reinstall, even when it gave us issues, has been recognized as existing.

Although this doesn't explain BV's failure, I notice that AL and M&G are both DVDs, whereas all the others are CDs, and I'm trying to run them from a CD/DVD drive. Is it possible that the drive needs a piece of software to recognize DVDs? I'd try BV in the CD-only drive, but it's been wonky for a long time - my husband can pop it open with a straight pin, but I can't, so there's no doubt that we need to replace that one, and even if I could open it, its failure or success in installing BV wouldn't prove a thing. I'm coming down strongly on the side of the recognition failure being an equipment problem rather than a disk problem, though.

I've spent some time testing the viability of the existing installation, and it's problematical. Several ordinary buy and build items that come with early EPs - the disco chair, for example - show a No Pics sign instead of the thumbnail, and are invisible if you try to buy or build with them; Entertain...Freestyle for Tips resets after the jar is put down; and I'm getting random blank icons, in thought/speech bubbles, in action queues, and in Wants displays. In the case of the Wants displays, this is not the blank blue slot that happens sometimes temporarily, but a failure of one element of the icon. For instance, last night Darren Dreamer's Want to go to College had the jagged-edge bubble and the text on mouseover, but not the college symbol. I haven't attached a specific college to Pleasantview; but prior to the hard drive crash, Circe Beaker's Want for a Far Eastern Vacation had the correct icon, even though none of the vacation neighborhoods were attached to Strangetown.

Off to wash the BV disk, and if that doesn't work...I'll worry about it then.

ETA: Washing the BV disk didn't work. :( Also updated my graphic card driver, hoping it'd help with the graphics glitching and/or incidentally install something that'd help with the disc drives (stranger things happen). No joy. I have got to figure out how to search for disc drive running thingamabobs.

However, after some experimentation, I find that adding a University reveals more graphic borkedness - including bare floorboards in residences, no templates in Create a Student while Create a Family is fine - and as far as I can tell all the missing icons, furniture, and build items have been University related. So that should mean my University install is bad and the rest are okay. Off to uninstall/reinstall that EP and reset the neighborhoods.

[StarlightBeauty]

I don't know if this is helpful or not, or if it will benefit you, but my problem with the disc error was fixed when I hooked up my dvd drive in other usb ports until it worked. That's how I fixed it. Don't know if you're looking for a permanent solution or a temporary solution, this is the best advice I can give. As soon as I got a new CD drive everything worked.

[Sunbee]

The drive starting up then stopping sounds a little like some of the problems people have described in connection with securom. I wonder if something got left in the registry during the install/uninstall dance. But it sounds like your motherboard is having a bad time as well. BIOS update? (Though I think I remember reading that your husband is a computer type, probably on your blog, so he's probably done all that stuff.) We've had some trouble with Win 7 in 64 bit being short drivers for some older items. You should have a driver for your cd/dvd drive, and if it's working on other things. I guess I'd start going to manufacturers' websites and downloading and manually running whatever drivers they have for your troublesome components at this point. (And complaining about Microsoft at my techie husband, but that goes without saying.)

[whiterider]

Your CD/DVD player wouldn't need a special driver for DVDs; but it is possible for the DVD head to wear out while the CD head still works fine. Do you have any other DVDs, perhaps films, you could test it out on?

[Peni Griffin]

The BV thing turned out to be down to BV not having completely uninstalled the first time. I'm being very, very careful with this third installation - install an EP, play it awhile, install an EP, play it awhile...at least it gets me a little bit of a playing fix, though I'm not sure it's not just making me miss Drama Acres more!

Whiterider, thank you! If that's possible it's an excellent explanation. I had been thinking about testing one of our video DVDs in that drive, but got involved in the problem of making the CDs at least run since confirming that it was a CD vs. DVD problem didn't get me any closer to understanding how that would work. Now that I know there's separate heads for each function, it seems likely that that's the problem; and if so, we can probably replace both drives (it really is ridiculous, having to open that one with a pin, especially since I can't get the knack of it) this weekend. I'll test a video to be sure. After I get Pets loaded and passed.

And I'll be sure to ask Damon about the motherboard. Unfortunately he's been an Analyst Programmer, dealing almost exclusively with software, for so long now that hardware gets away from him. We have a friend we consult with on hardware issues, but he lives clear across town and has one of those 10-hour-a-day jobs so we don't like to do the most efficient thing and beg him to come take a look at things before we've done all we can on our own.

ETA: Hmmm...When I couldn't get Pets to run (it seemed to have installed, but when I tried to launch it kept telling me to make sure the disc was in the drive) I thought that it wouldn't be too surprising if all this installing and uninstalling had worn out the CD head, too! So I put the Pets disc away and did the DVD test and got this message:

Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because a compatible DVD decoder is not installed on your computer.

This means that the computer (or at least the WMP part of it) can at least recognize that a DVD is in the drive, though obviously I now need to go looking for a "compatible DVD Decoder" without knowing whether the decoder has to be compatible with Windows, Windows Media Player, or what. Always fun; and in fact the sort of thing it's generally better to leave to Damon since he understands more strings of random numbers than I do. As a check of the wearing-out-the-CD-head theory I popped in an audio CD and it started right up. So now I'm afraid another complete uninstall/reinstall is in my future; but I think I'd better not jump the gun on it, and shall try to possess my soul in patience till we improve the rig a bit more.

Meantime, if this suggests anything to anybody, please feel free to speak up!

[Sunbee]

I think that a decoder is a region video watcher thing--like, you have to have a decoder for the USA to watch videos made for the USA on it, one for Europe to watch videos made for Europe on it, etc. (Totally not a movie watcher, but I remember my husband muttering things about this. I think it falls under the general heading of 'stupid copyright protection stuff'.) Microsoft and several other entities would like very much to take your money in exchange for one, but I think Netflix offers subscribers a free one, too. But that shouldn't have any effect on game dvds whatsoever--I don't have one on my computer since I don't watch movies on it.

[Peni Griffin]

Aha - thanks, that kept me from chasing a red herring. The DVD I put in was in fact a BBC production. I put in a Justice League cartoon disc, all American, and it just sat there; when I tried to browse to it from the Run... tab I got the same message about being sure a disc was in.

I am now prepared to pitch it hard to my husband that we need new drives. Which unfortunately probably means I can't afford fabric for the tank tops I planned to make next week...I'll just have to do what I can out of my stash. Which makes it even more frustrating that I can't get Pets to load and I can't tell if it's a bad install or the CD heads wearing out. But that's life.

Dang I miss my sims.

[JDacapo]

Aha - thanks, that kept me from chasing a red herring. The DVD I put in was in fact a BBC production. I put in a Justice League cartoon disc, all American, and it just sat there; when I tried to browse to it from the Run... tab I got the same message about being sure a disc was in.

I am now prepared to pitch it hard to my husband that we need new drives. Which unfortunately probably means I can't afford fabric for the tank tops I planned to make next week...I'll just have to do what I can out of my stash. Which makes it even more frustrating that I can't get Pets to load and I can't tell if it's a bad install or the CD heads wearing out. But that's life.

Dang I miss my sims.

I hope everything will turn out alright for you :(