View Full Version : Can't read CD
XianWulong
10-11-2001, 11:31 AM
Everything was working fine up to tuesday night, got up to chapter 3, but when I came to play it
wednesday night, I got a "device not ready" error when I click on my CD drive.
After speaking with technical support, they led me through many options to test (including the patch), but they all failed. I tried another CD in my rive and it worked, so I figured the CD was at fault. To double check, I ook the CD to a friend's house and tried it --- it worked fine.
I'm running Win98, 1.4ghz athlon, 512meg ram, and it's a Samsung DVDrom dive.
can someone please help me? I'd really appreciate getting my Max Payne fix gain!
Cheers to you all.
hyte1
10-12-2001, 03:34 AM
Try the following:
Uninstall the game,Delete the games Folder (in c:\program files\) then complete a full reinstall of the game.
Make sure no other programs are running at the time by pressing ctrl-alt-del and closing down all programs except sys tray and explorer. If you find while end tasking another program shuts down the system then leave that open also.
If you have any anti virus software running disable it in its control program, uninstall the game and reinstall.
If you have a cdwriter or dvdrom drive additional to a cdrom drive, uninstall the game, reinstall and play using a different drive.
Right click my computer, select properties, performance, file system, cdrom, lower the read ahead optimisation to no read ahead and lower supplemental cache size.
Check the disk is clean and has no physical defects.
Check the start and end letters of your CD rom drive. To do this right click on my computer and select properties. Click the device manager tab and go into your CD-Rom properties. The start and end letters are in here.
Try updating the firmware revision of your CD Rom drive.
If this doesn't work get the disk exchanged and try a new disk!
XianWulong
10-13-2001, 04:24 AM
thanks hyte1 - I tried all of those but still couldn't read the CD. I'm off to get it exchanged today.
by the way - for other readers - www.Samsungelectronics.co.uk (http://www.Samsungelectronics.co.uk) website have a poor method of informing you how to upgrade your firmware.
Superczar
10-13-2001, 06:04 AM
Cd drives are just funny sometimes, mine doesnt like Memorex CD-R's for example, sometimes it will read a coupla games I burned, sometimes it wont...
[ 10-13-2001: Message edited by: superczar ]
Guest
10-13-2001, 09:14 PM
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by hyte1:
Try the following:
Uninstall the game,Delete the games Folder (in c:\program files\) then complete a full reinstall of the game.
Make sure no other programs are running at the time by pressing ctrl-alt-del and closing down all programs except sys tray and explorer. If you find while end tasking another program shuts down the system then leave that open also.
If you have any anti virus software running disable it in its control program, uninstall the game and reinstall.
If you have a cdwriter or dvdrom drive additional to a cdrom drive, uninstall the game, reinstall and play using a different drive.
Right click my computer, select properties, performance, file system, cdrom, lower the read ahead optimisation to no read ahead and lower supplemental cache size.
Check the disk is clean and has no physical defects.
Check the start and end letters of your CD rom drive. To do this right click on my computer and select properties. Click the device manager tab and go into your CD-Rom properties. The start and end letters are in here.
Try updating the firmware revision of your CD Rom drive.
If this doesn't work get the disk exchanged and try a new disk!<hr></blockquote>
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> WOW thats a lot of info ill have to try some of these <hr></blockquote>
XianWulong
10-14-2001, 11:46 AM
argh!!!
I tried out all the above - even got a replacement disk from my store, and it STILL DOESN'T WORK!!
What else can I try? I still can't read the CD... Do I have to go and buy a better DVDrom drive to read this thing? That would be annoying...
Mark Novak
10-14-2001, 01:27 PM
I'll add this to the long long list of Max Payne f*ck ups. You'd almost expect them to fix these problems before selling it, ya know?
Having a faulty cd drive is hardly Remedy's fault, I had that problem with my first cd drive, it read all my games, occasionally had trouble with magazine cd's, till one day my Q2 cd refused to work, and the problem increased from there, sorry to say, but you need a new cd drve.
Superczar
10-14-2001, 05:26 PM
Did you try patching it? Here's one of the problems the new patch is supposed to address:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Game doesn't start with some CD-ROM drives: A newer version of Safedisc copy protection is now in use.<hr></blockquote>
Why they bothered with SafeDisc I dunno, it doesnt work...
XianWulong
10-14-2001, 06:38 PM
I appreciate people taking the time to read my dilemnas!
I would patch it if I could install it! Actually, I installed the patch the moment the first CD didn't work at the suggestion of technical support - didn't fix anything. Since it's not on my HDD now (Tech support told me to uninstall it) there is nothing to patch.
The samsung DVDrom is new - I've only had it for a week. If it works fine on other CD's, I don't think www.scan.co.uk (http://www.scan.co.uk) will exchange it. If I have to buy another, are Panasonic a good range of DVD players? If not, could someone suggest one that is guaranteed to work reliably?
Scotty
10-14-2001, 06:39 PM
Another member posted a SafeDisc troubleshooting guide (http://forums.3drealms.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=17&t=000396) a few weeks ago.
hyte1
10-15-2001, 03:48 AM
What IDE drivers do you have installed on your computer?
I asked because I had a problem at the weekend when trying to install a demo off a magazine CD. My computer either locked up, showed a BSOD or brought up a corrupt installer message.
The problem is down to an incompatibility between my IDE Drivers and the IDE controller.
This is especially important if you have a VIA Chipset on your motherboard.
XianWulong
10-15-2001, 04:10 AM
My motherboard is an Asus A7V-266 Via KT266 Chipset .
Where do I find out what IDE controller I'm using? (I'm not at home atm)
If I upgraded from Win98 to Win2K, would it sovle the issue?
hyte1
10-15-2001, 07:05 AM
You can find out which driver you are using in the Device Manager.
If I was you I would download and install the Latest IDE Busmaster driver. Heres a direct link to it:
http://download.viahardware.com/3012.zip
Incase the above gets deleted, you find it at www.viahardware.com (http://www.viahardware.com)
Let me know how you get on!
The problem is IMO not related to safedisc, just a faulty drive, it's hard to believe, but if you keep the drive, problems are going to get worse, I has a similar problem, it begins with one cd, but it will go on, and more and more cd's are going to stop working. As you mentioned, it worked before, but not anymore, wich excludes the driver part, if you didn't change them since then.
hyte1
10-15-2001, 08:56 AM
Maybe true, but I have a DVD ROM and a CD Writer. With the DVD drive, when watching a DVD or copying the contents of the disk to the HDD my computer would either lock up, BSOD or reboot. When writing a CD in the CDRW, I would get similar problems.
How can the drive be faulty when all other CD's work fine? On the other hand how can the disk be faulty if it works on another PC?
Therefore you can only try the drivers!
XianWulong
10-15-2001, 10:35 AM
I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who's contributed - I really appreciate your thoughts!
Is your writer the master or the slave?
Writers prefer to be master, with strange behaviour if they are not as a result.
XianWulong
10-16-2001, 04:14 AM
Just to keep everyone updated, I borrowed another CDrom from work and installed it in my computer at home - Fantastically, I could read the CD. SO I copied the entire CD contents to my HDD. Right near the end, the disk began to spin at random speeds (sounding like a coffee grinder at times) and the copy failed. Still, I had enough to copy over, save the Max FX and help files.
I installed from my HDD - fine. When I tried to run the game, I still needed the cd in the drive despite having installed it from HDD. Since it again started spinning randomly, the loading failed. A friend suggested getting a no-cd hack since I own the game anyway. Are there any legal implications that people know of?
biXen
10-17-2001, 05:09 AM
Install those Bus drivers... VIA 4 in 1 or whatever. You seem to have a big problem with drives. You can also try disabling DMA for the drives if you have it enabled. But follow the link that dude gave, and install it. HIGHLY recommended. Try an older version if it still ****s up...
Using a DVD drive for two years, using it for EVERYTHING, cds, audio cds, dvds, etc. you begin to feel the wear after a while, the laser get's worn, and it's not a wonder, it's natural. So just replace it... I'm gonna get a normal cd-rom too, so I have Dvd, burner, cd-rom... less wear on each of them, and I can have them longer, cause there's no need to update neither anymore, they are fast enough... nobody cares how many X's there are now images/icons/smile.gif
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