Installing & Running Games on Ext HD

[[JiF]LtWaterboy]

Ok guys,

who's got experience with installing & running PC games from an external hard drive (HD) like a WD My Passport?

Is anyone doing this right now with BF1942? If so, any thoughts/comments/suggestions?

Especially with the whole punkbuster need, I was curious on how well it works.

Trying to keep stuff OFF the internal HD (C:) as much as possible. It's running like a champ & don't want to mess it up!!

Hadn't yet tried doing this yet, but I have talked to a buddy @ work who mentioned using this approach.

Please only reply IF YOU HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH DOING THIS. Thanks.

LT

[[JiF]LtWaterboy]

Well, I guess noone has any info on this!!

I finally broke down & tried it.

Install & everything went well, but cant play it.

Keeps giving me an error to plz insert correct CD into CD rom.

The external is hooked up in same spot, and tried all three CD's in my internal CD rom. nada...nilch, nein, zip, zero...

Thoughts??

LT

[Shalghar]

Looks to me like at least once pb is not the main cause of problems.

Have you tried a noCD-solution with a "low" driveletter for an eventual image drive or a complete nocd-patch (I seem to remember that lini mentioned one noCD-patch that worked well for him)?

This looks definitely like copy protection issue, not unlike Starforce disliking my old scsi adapter and refusing to work due to "image software" it fantasized about whenever that controller was enabled. Bf42 only checks for correct media after install, whenever you start the game or at any level change so installation is bound to be running well if the media is not damaged.

Did you get any error messages except "insert correct CD"?
Did the correct CD-ROM drive activate when you inserted the media (thus autostarting the cd menu)?
Have you tried inserting as much Bf42 media as you have(up to 4 when WW2 anthology is your game) in as much CD-ROM drives as possible?
Have you tried with different media of your copy?
Did other copy protected games run well with that hardware or might it be a hardware/drive and/or ASPI/driver issue?
Is the external drive always mounting under the same driveletter?

I also seem to remember that you were one of those people being forced to stand vista. Is that also the case at the system you are talking about?

[[JiF]zougathefist]

Keeps giving me an error to plz insert correct CD into CD rom.

The external is hooked up in same spot, and tried all three CD's in my internal CD rom. nada...nilch, nein, zip, zero...

Thoughts??

LT

perhaps you could install a virtual CD drive on the HDD?
try Alcohol 120% http://www.alcohol-soft.com/

you will need to crack and copy your CD-ROMs then store them in virtual CD file on the HDD
this prog has all the tools to do this, plus you will already have the hash key so it should be straight forward

this ought to eliminate this error
ZtF

[[JiF]LtWaterboy]

Looks to me like at least once pb is not the main cause of problems.

Have you tried a noCD-solution with a "low" driveletter for an eventual image drive or a complete nocd-patch (I seem to remember that lini mentioned one noCD-patch that worked well for him)?

This looks definitely like copy protection issue, not unlike Starforce disliking my old scsi adapter and refusing to work due to "image software" it fantasized about whenever that controller was enabled. Bf42 only checks for correct media after install, whenever you start the game or at any level change so installation is bound to be running well if the media is not damaged.

Did you get any error messages except "insert correct CD"?
Did the correct CD-ROM drive activate when you inserted the media (thus autostarting the cd menu)?
Have you tried inserting as much Bf42 media as you have(up to 4 when WW2 anthology is your game) in as much CD-ROM drives as possible?
Have you tried with different media of your copy?
Did other copy protected games run well with that hardware or might it be a hardware/drive and/or ASPI/driver issue?
Is the external drive always mounting under the same driveletter?

I also seem to remember that you were one of those people being forced to stand vista. Is that also the case at the system you are talking about?

No, I have not tried those options that you & Zouga have suggested.

Only two things (not including sending a hopeless email to EA!) I did so far were:

1. Dragged a copy of everything from the external onto my internal (C:) directly. Tried to play and gave same results.
2. Just got done trying this with CoD:WaW - it works!!! ugh!!! I might still be getting some small issues with "cut scenes" but had this issue when I originally installed on C:. However, this did not occur until mid-to end of game operations. already in Scene 1 now (maybe - I didnt play for long).

Yeah - only error message was the please insert correct CD.

I thought I saw something in a previous post about a "limited # of installs" on games from EA. Is this true? If so, does BF42 have one?
Like I said, the key codes worked & allowed for the installs to go off without a hitch.

EA's reply gave the following link (with some references to what both of you suggested):

http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/ph ... aqid=10703

My next quick attempt will be to install BF42 ONLY (no expansion packs) directly on internal HD (C:) again (ugh!!) and see if that can at least play (on single player mode). If so, I'll try to incrementally install/play and see where it stops working (again, at least on 1P mode).

I dont want to go as far as doing the drives/cloningg files options yet.

It may be as simple as the CD's being no longer any good, and have to buy the whole pack again...fortunately only $9.95!!

Wish me luck, and thanks for the ideas!!

LT

[[JiF]LtWaterboy]

Well,

I think I earned my "Problem Solving Badge" for the day...

Looks like I need to go out & re-buy the game again....

Tried to install just the BF42 on the external first, then just the internal HD.

NEITHER would play - gave the same CD error. So it looks like that is the problem child....

LT

[Shalghar]

Ouch bad.

Just make sure it really is the CDROMs and not your Hardware or driver issues.

As for the Install limitations, that´s a ripoff "feature" of newer copy-protections like starforce and newest securom. Not to mention steam or WGA but that´s not applicable here.

As far as my BF originals (Old 1.2 japanese (germoney needs about half a year warmup for our censors too look over even a checkers clone), 2 year old ww2 antology and 1 month old ww2 anthology as the first ww2a disc burst in the drive) show me, theres an old non-internet dependant securom on it.
Annoying that it always verifies the disc every new level but not trojaning around as far as all logs and software behaviour show.

So no worries of installation limits there. Bioshock 42 may be a different flavour.

Wish you best of luck to get ingame again as soon as possible.

[[JiF]LtWaterboy]

Ok...had to give up my problem solving badge.

now I'm back to square 1.

I bought the new complete set for $9.95 (interesting...even came with BF Vietnam)

I FIRST did a clean install on my INTERNAL Drive (C:) after I cleaned up my registries and removed all old files from the previous install attempts.

I also updated my firmware on my lightscribe CD-RW drive (E:, didnt use my Philips BR DVDROM this time).

I turned off my only software (AVG8.0 free) both during install & when trying to run/open the game.

I ran in administrator mode and XP compatability mode (also tried the other way).

long story short - I STILL GET THAT DAMN PLEASE INSERT CORRECT CD ERROR!!!!!

Unless someone can walk me through this - I'm f'in done with BF1942...EA can kiss my a$$.....

If you think you can help, PM me & I'll send u my cell phone #...only way that this is going to be tried again...

Like I said, all my other/new games work, even installed on the WD Passport Ess portable drive.

Thanks in advance. ps. guess this is the only way Winky can stop me...lol...

LT

[[JiF]zougathefist]

hey Waterboy
I am now a member of your club,

I have been playing BF on this comp for about 7 months and have had the usual Vista issues,
but the other day I got the insert correct CD error, thing is I had played earlier in the day with no probs and the disk never left the drive.
I restarted and the prob was still there.

Then I got creative, I always click on the SW icon to launch BF but when I checked the disk it was disk 2 (i.e. the RtR disk)
I switched to disk 3 and hey presto problem gone!
This may or may not work for you, but sometimes the simple solutions are the best



Now all I got to worry about is what to do for the day, my work is closed due to power failure and the trians are off cos of the 4inches of snow.
looks like a BF extravaganza
ZtF

[Sir Die-a-lot]

Poor brits scared off by a few flakes

[[JiF]ALargeWoodenBadger]

Poor brits scared off by a few flakes

LOL - we got 4 inches of snow on October 17th and it's still with us. In fact those 4 little inches felt so good they've grown to more then 11 feet. I have a parking lot that holds 10 cars, since we exhausted the area set aside for dumping snow we've plowing the snow to the back of the lot. Now my lot has places for two cars - so long as they are subcompacts. So far this winter we've seen a couple of houses crushed under the weight of the snow. Nobody injured, just enough damage to remind the rest of us to shovel our roofs. You shovel the snow from your roof into your drive then the snow from your drive into your neighbors yard that way we all share mother natures love.

As you can imagine living in these conditions can be exhausting, heck the temperature has averaged -20 for the last several weeks (This helps to keep the snow fresh!). So on Saturday our winter festival starts. A chance to enjoy the season and have some fun. Ice skating, skiing, snow shoeing and snow mobile races ...etc. are scheduled to provide a much needed distraction. But before you plan your trip up here to join us you should know the weather forecast. High winds with temperatures averaging 10 degrees above freezing accompanied by 3 to 4 inches of rain. Mmmmmmm refreshing, slushfest 2009 should be a riot.

I know God has a sense of humour, but I'm tired of living on the butt of his jokes.

[[JiF]LtWaterboy]

hey Waterboy
I am now a member of your club,

I have been playing BF on this comp for about 7 months and have had the usual Vista issues,
but the other day I got the insert correct CD error, thing is I had played earlier in the day with no probs and the disk never left the drive.
I restarted and the prob was still there.

Then I got creative, I always click on the SW icon to launch BF but when I checked the disk it was disk 2 (i.e. the RtR disk)
I switched to disk 3 and hey presto problem gone!
This may or may not work for you, but sometimes the simple solutions are the best



Now all I got to worry about is what to do for the day, my work is closed due to power failure and the trians are off cos of the 4inches of snow.
looks like a BF extravaganza
ZtF

Sorry. Nice try. But that was one of the first things I tried. Actually tried all 4 of the disks. Nada.

Getting real close to removing completely again and forgetting all about it...

LT

[[JiF]FrenchAfroman]

maybe u should do an exeption for bf and install in on ur internal HD, would be good to see u around again

[[JiF]LtWaterboy]

maybe u should do an exeption for bf and install in on ur internal HD, would be good to see u around again

Frenchy,

You might not have seen all my "attempts".

Tried do multiple variations of installation, INCLUDING the internal HD (installed it there via different CD rom drives, playing from different drives, using all of the install disks as the "play disc", etc etc).

I still get the crappin CD error. It is something VERY specific to my new system/Vista that I just cannot figure out, so I gave up yesterday.

LT

[[JiF]KellysHero]

Just do what Sly did and create a dual boot drive with Vista and XP.