Troubleshooting "Please insert disc" problem.

"Please insert disc" problem.

Hi all,

I hope someone can help. My info:
1) Pentium 4 Processor/2.2 GHz

2) 512 MB Ram
3) 17 GB free
4) 40 GB total
5) ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
6) Driver version 6.14.10.6392
7) DirectX Version 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
8) Operating System - XP
9) Sims 2 CD Version
10) Nature of problem I put Disc 1 in the drive, it starts to make noise as if it wants to read the disc, and then nothing happens except for a few strange hums coming from the drive. The name of the disc does not appear next to my CD-drive in My Computer. If I click on my E:drive, it asks me to insert the disc.



I know it isnt the disc that is at fault, because I put it in another computer and the installation screen automatically popped up. Ive tried setting my Secondary IDE Channel Device 0 and Device 1 to PIO only since I saw that piece of advice on the boards here. Ive tried closing out every single process that I could in the task manager, which is a suggestion at the EA tech support site.



I would really appreciate your help. If you would like more information, please ask.

 

Click Start. The Run. Type dxdiag and press Enter. This will provide a pretty full analysis of your system especially the directx deatil.

I'm wondering if your CD drive is at fault.

 

Thanks. I edited my post to include the directx info. If there's anything else from there that would be useful to include, let me know.

 

Do other discs work in your CD drive? If your CD drive has failed, that could be your problem.

Alternatively, it could always be the classic copy protection SNAFU. Copy-protected discs ship essentially damaged and are not compliant with CD standards, so can fail to read in strictly standards-compliant CD drives. If you do, in fact, own the game, downloading and using an image of the incooperative CD should be legal for you. However, board rules prohibit discussion of how to go about doing this, so you're probably SOL here.

 

Yes, the CD drive has no problems with other disks. I can insert Disc 2 and it will read it - the Sims 2 icon appears under My Computer.

Heh... Oh, I own this copy. I have jumped through hoops to try and get this game to work! I originally purchased the DVD edition b/c I have a DVD-ROM and wanted the goodies that come with. That didn't work - it installed, but when I went to play the game I never got past the splash page. Contacted EA tech support, tried everything and anything they had to suggest, and finally exchanged my DVD edition for a CD edition by mailing it back to EA (darn BestBuy exchange policies...). Was all excited today to get my package in the mail, and now this!

:sigh:

 

Well, with the DVD version, the protected disc is, obviously, the one and only. With the CD version, the same problem applies to CD1: It's a "protected" CD that is noncompliant with the standards of CD-ROMs, and as such, some drives are unable to read it. This could very well be the problem, since you say the disc works fine in another computer, and the drive works fine with other discs, including the non-protected other discs of TS2. Therefore, your only recourse is to use one of those "non-official" workarounds, not only to play the game, but to even install it in the first place. Unfortunately, such matters are not allowed to be discussed publicly, so you'll have to take this up privately, or on your own.

 

My DVD-RW drive does this if set to DMA mode - can't read the disc. Reads it fine with PIO though. Don't know what the problem is... you might need another CDROM drive. I assume you have tried it in both your DVD and CD drives?

Anyway, the only way it seems to play the game without spending more money (like how it should be) would be JMP's suggestion, download the image of disc 1. However, in addition to finding the means yourself if you don't know already, you can't download CD1 without downloading all 4 CD images. Which, if you have broadband, can take a day and a half of continuous downloading. Anything slower, might as well forget it.

 

Thanks for your suggestions, it's appreciated. Argh. Guess I'll see what I can do.

 

I also had the same problem a few years ago with Pharaoh. I had put a cd writer into my desktop (only one bay) after tearing my hair out -- and going back to the store to change the game disc (LOL Brit consumer law is soo grrrreat! ) -- I finally hit on the idea of replacing the cd writer with the original drive.

 

Yeah, I know. I need to set it to PIO mode just for it to recognize the disc, but once it reads, I can set it to DMA and it works fine from then on.

Anyway, a plain CD-ROM drive can be bought for quite cheap, and is generally more reliable than CD/DVD writers. Depending on how much you've spent on the game already, you might/might not be willing to do that in favor of downloading it.

Off topic: How much did you spend? I got the CD version at the local store for approx. $31US a couple days after release, but I've seen prices up to $50 online

 

I'm using a laptop, and from a quick scan of froogle, external cd-rom drives seem to cost a lot. Thanks for the suggestion. If I was a big game player, I'd consider dropping the extra money so as not to run into this problem, but it's not really worth it for me. I spent 50 bucks on this from lovely best buy (not to mention the cost of shipping it back to EA!). A lot of money, but it was close by and quick and easy -- or so I thought.

 

insert correct cd after adding more ram

Hi all
when i first started playing the sims2 it was very slow.. so the day before yesterday- ten days after i started playing on a daily bases- i decided to take my laptop in to have more ram inserted. yesterday, when i got it back and attempted to play the sims2 , it gave me an error message to "please insert the correct CD" does anyone know what happened? how can i fix it ...

please help....I miss my Family stranger :(

 

Odds are something you've done managed to break the finicky and disagreeable copy protection. You're going to have to either crack it, or attempt voodoo debugging. The former, we're not allowed to discuss, the latter, well, voodoo debugging is hardly a science: You change things at random and hope this fixes the problem and doesn't destroy your computer.

 

Ah, the banes of using a laptop... sorry, I assumed you had a desktop computer and could buy a cheap IDE CDROM drive. External USB CDROMs are much more expensive, so I don't know what you could do now...

The quickest and easiest way in this kind of situation is to use a no-cd. Seeing as how there is no fully functional no-cd for TS2 out there as of date, the alternative is to download and use a "mini-image" to bypass disc check.

 

thank you for responding .. may i ask another question? thanks what is a mini-image. i tried searching online but found nothing
:tired:
now i really really really miss my stranger famliy

 

Mini-images are like full CD images, only they don't tend to contain the actual data, only the necessary info to fool the copy protection, so they're much smaller. They're also harder to find, and I've never used one, I just rip the entire CD. I have a 3 TB RAID, anyway. Space is no issue.

 

They are indeed rarer, but the reason being that many games simply have working "fixed" executables. Because TS2 does not, the alternative is to make a virtual drive out of an image (using a tool such as Daemon Tools) to bypass the cd check. I've seen several floating around, most are around 150kb, much smaller than a full image. I use one myself - disc-swapping becomes really tiring if you're playing several games at once. They can be found at- well, I can't tell you here, can I?

 

If it isn't one thing, its another!

Okay, I had the video driver problem... downloaded my update and I FINALLY got my SIMS2 working. I played it for a couple of hours, although it ran quite slowly. So today I go to play it and I'm getting the "Cannot locate the CD-ROM Please eject and re-insert the CD-ROM" What??? I played it yesterday!!! Plus, my other games, movies and CDs are working fine. What's wrong? I'm gonna cry!