Help, my game asploded!

[sara_dippity]

No, really, it did!
So I noticed a couple of times that when I pulled a disk out of my dvd r/w drive that it was more hot than normal, like it had been written too and not just read... Then I noticed that there was a tiny crack near the center of my seasons disk 1, and I know I'm super careful about keeping my preschooler away from my disks and I know I didn't drop it or anything so I thought that was strange... but it played just fine...
So then I start up SimPe and my dvd drive starts spinning (which I thought was odd since SimPe points to a spot on the hard drive, not the disk) and I hear this loud pop.... open the drive, many pieces fall out. Shiny ones, I could make a mosaic.
I have never heard of this happening before.
Anyway, until I replace my disk and drive, I know that some people around here... acquire... games, so I thought someone might have a tip on a way to play without my disk. Preferably a way I could still build with, I recall something about an .exe that disables build and buy mode.

[dragoness]

This should fix it for you. Go here:

http://www.gameburnworld.com/gp/gamefixes/sims2seasons.shtml

Download the exe linked there. Go to the seasons executable, found here:

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSBin

and rename the file "Sims2EP5" to "Sims2EP5-original" or something like that, so that you keep the old exe around in case you need to patch or you decide you want to try running from the CD again. (Well, if/when you get a new one.) You'll probably need to switch the exe back to install a new expansion pack, too...

Put the new downloaded file into the same folder, make sure it has the same name as the original exe ("Sims2EP5"... I think it comes named that already but you know...) and voila!

I downloaded my no-cd crack from this very site, so imo they're trustworthy, but as with downloading any exe off the internet and especially ones pertaining to illegal activities, do run a virus scan on the file before using. Well, using a no-cd crack isn't illegal if you've bought the game, of course, but they're often used by people who haven't so... yeah. 


Edited to add: Oddly enough, I have heard of CDs doing that. Probably either your drive is spinning too fast (which causes the cracks, and cracks + speed = asplodey) and/or the optics are too hot (and cracks + heat + normal spinning = asplodey). If it isn't a big deal to you to replace the drive, I'd do that. Not too expensive and waaay less of a headache than trying to figure why it's blowing up your CDs.

[sara_dippity]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm replacing the drive. It's still under warranty. The tech guy looked and looked for something about cds exploding but didn't find anything so he said "So what you're telling me is the cd is stuck and the drive won't open it for you to get it out." so I said "Sure." and he said "Good, your warranty covers that."

[ElfPuddle]

 
That may be the most helpful thing I've heard about techies in a long time! (Present company excluded, of course!)

[LordBanxter]

Hmm, I wonder if that particular .exe would also work with a downloaded version from EALink...  I'm getting rather tired of not being able to play when my cable company decides to "upgrade" something that was working fine to start with.

[miros]

If you registered your software, Maxis will send you a new CD for cheap.

[ElfPuddle]

Why should sara have to pay for it at all? She already did.

[LordBanxter]

If you registered your software, Maxis will send you a new CD for cheap.

Yes, they will, actually, which rather surprised me when I lost my Uni discs, luckily, I had registered it as soon as I installed it, so the code was retrievable.  For people that got lazy and started using EALink however (such as myself), no amount of red tape or hoop jumping can convince them to send you the discs for any reason.  Kept telling me that I'd need to go out and purchase the physical software from a retailer or order from the EAstore, so I've been looking for a bypass for this for a while now.

[ElfPuddle]

All the more reason to give them as little money as possible.

Do not pay for a game more than once!

[syberspunk]

I'm weary about replacing the .exe with some cracked one. *shrugs*

Personally, I would check out the MATY FAQ.  I think there are some decent instructions there.  Since you've already installed Seasons, you really just need to obtain a copy of the ISO/image, then use daemontools to mount it.  You could then use ASR or sd4hider.  daemontools will fool your computer into thinking that there is a cd drive (the mounted image acts like a virtual drive) and your game should run as normal.


Ste

[miros]

Why should sara have to pay for it at all? She already did.

It's like $5 to pay for the plastic CD, some sloping forehead intern to put the CD in an envelope and type your address on a mailing label, and postage.  Heck of a lot cheaper than buying a new copy (unless she can persuade the tech to fork over for that too (when pigs fly)) and safer than using a cracked copy.

I'm weary about replacing the .exe with some cracked one. *shrugs*

Me too.  I'd back up my exe, try the crack, and get the new CD from Maxis ASAP.

[sara_dippity]

Actually my plan for replacing the cd is something along the lines of "My mom gave me this game last weekend and I don't have the receipt 'cause she didn't give it to me, but look, there's only one cd in it!"
Say, syber, can you say that again, in a dummies version? Aspifically this: You could then use ASR or sd4hider.

[Zazazu]

If you registered your software, Maxis will send you a new CD for cheap.

Yes, they will, actually, which rather surprised me when I lost my Uni discs, luckily, I had registered it as soon as I installed it, so the code was retrievable.  For people that got lazy and started using EALink however (such as myself), no amount of red tape or hoop jumping can convince them to send you the discs for any reason.  Kept telling me that I'd need to go out and purchase the physical software from a retailer or order from the EAstore, so I've been looking for a bypass for this for a while now.

Ugh, I know. So far so good, my cable internet very rarely goes out...but when it does, it usually takes a whole 24 hours for them to fix it. And downloading off EAlink is the only way for me to get the game within the release week. Yup, I'm one of those addicted whores who needs it right now. For some freakish reason, no place in Chicago or Evanston that's easy for my carless self to get to ever has it on time. Will unplug my internet tonight and try the .exe to see if it works for ya. You never know.

[mistymage]

I'm weary about replacing the .exe with some cracked one. *shrugs*

You're tired about replacing the .exe with a crack?  I think you meant wary.. or perhaps leery

Personally, I would check out the MATY FAQ.  I think there are some decent instructions there.  Since you've already installed Seasons, you really just need to obtain a copy of the ISO/image, then use daemontools to mount it.  You could then use ASR or sd4hider.  daemontools will fool your computer into thinking that there is a cd drive (the mounted image acts like a virtual drive) and your game should run as normal.


Ste

I'm using that crack .. and my game seems to load a zillion times faster! I'm guessing my D: is getting a bit weak after 4 years of hard usage.  I really like not having to dig out my disc, wipe off the fingerprints belonging to whichever child put it away.. and then grrr about any scratches that might have shown up since I last cleaned it.

[KatEnigma]

They got me to go with EALink for GLS, before I knew that it wasn't as painless as it originally was for the HP. I was not about to put up with the connection crap- or having to just allow another program to run- so I used the cracked exe. I even then UNINSTALLED the damn link program, and it worked fine.

The only real problem with using the exe's are that finding the updated one after a patch is pretty impossible.  I need to go back and check to see if the Seasons patch really did fix anything, because I've had it with it taking 3+ tries to start Seasons when I want to play.  (Damn safedisc!)

[syberspunk]

It's a lot easier than you'd think really.  I'm an idjit when it comes to this type of stuff, but Venusy put a how-to in the MATY FAQ:

How To: Play A "Legally Backed Up" copy of The Sims 2 (and EPs)
Step 1: Get yourself an ISO, or BIN and CUE files of the EP you wish to play.
Step 2: Download DAEMON Tools. Do a scan for spyware after installing.
Step 3: Mount the ISO/CUE file in DAEMON Tools.
Step 3a: If you haven't already, you will be prompted to install the game. This may require mounting multiple ISO/CUE files, depending on what you've "backed up".
Step 4: Game won't run? Download the SecuROM loader (I use version 1.2), and extract it to the directory of your choice.
Step 5: Now modify your "Sims 2 (EP/SP name)" shortcut to the following: "(path to asr.exe) -r "(path to SIMS2(EP/SP whatever).exe"". Hit "Change Icon" and locate the "SIMS2(EP/SP whatever).exe" file to restore the icon back to its former glory.

    * FOR EXAMPLE: My TS2 install is located at "J:\Games\The Sims 2\The Sims 2\TSBin\SIMS2.EXE", and asr.exe is located at "J:\Games\asr.exe". So the shortcut I use is ""J:\Games\asr.exe" -r "J:\Games\The Sims 2\The Sims 2\TSBin\SIMS2.exe"". Normal command line options can be added after the SIMS2(EP/SP number).exe, such as "-w -r800x600" for a game in windowed mode, with a screen resolution of 800x600.

Step 6: Run the game!

If you don't have a bittorrent client, then you should get one.  You might even be able to find an image from www.gamecopyworld.com - I would look for one that doesn't have/mention a hack/cracked .exe

Download daemontools and install it.  I suggest 3.4 if you can find it.  I tried the 3.6 but it gave my old puter problems. *shrugs* If you have a brand new, shiney compy, then you probably don't have to worry so much.

Also get ASR from the same website as daemontools.  Unzip/rar/whatever to wherever you want to store it (I keep it in C:\Program Files\ASR).

Install daemon tools.  You will get a red icon with a lightning bolty kinda looking thing in your systray (the tray where your clock shows up in your task bar - assuming you are running WindowsXP).  If you are running on mac... uh... you're screwed?

Otherwise, (right?)click on the icon and choose the mount option.  Drill down to wherever your ISO image is located.

Edit your Sims 2 launch icon thingy as per Venusy's instructions above.

You should now be able to play your game as normal.

Ste

PS. Yes, I meant wary.  I am weary from the day's work so my weary mind was not working properly.

Irregardless I am dubious about using cracked .exes just cuz... they contain executable code and I ph33r viruses or trojans or what not.  But... who knows... perhaps ISO images could easily contain viruses as well. *shrugs*  But, I only started using this method recently, and usually just got the image from someone I considered trustworthy, like Argon or BlueSoup.  Only recently did I try to acquire the Celebrations image on my own, but then it turned out that I didn't even need to.

[dragoness]

I don't get why a couple of you seem so very frightened of a cracked exe, that you're so willing to run a cracked .iso... which is just as capable of containing viruses!

Isn't that what virus scanners are for? 

At any rate, yes, you can mount a cracked (er, I mean "legally backed up") copy of the first disk. Just keep in mind that windows really does think each of those virtual drives is a real one... at one point I had plugged in a USB thumb drive, my printer which has some photo printing/storing capability which makes it show up as a drive, my normal two hard drives, my normal DVD drive, and three mounted drives... and I got a popup in windows that said "Your configuration has changed significantly since Windows was first registered. Please call 1-800-BLAH."

Ultimately I was on the phone with microsoft for quite a while. They never really told me what they were convinced I was doing, exactly, but...  it took a while to get them to give me a customer service unlock code so I could use my computer again. Thank goodness I'd actually paid for my copy of windows and had a real activation key to give them. If I'd bought my computer pre-loaded with windows and didn't have a key, or I had a cracked key, they wouldn't have given me that customer service code and I would be SOL. Probably would have had to wipe the thing, reformat and reinstall.

I guess my point is it's just something to keep in mind when deciding to use an exe vs. a mounted iso.

Heh, well, that and the extra exe is about 5 mb... and the iso about 500mb... 


Regarding the locked-out build and buy modes: That seems to only happen when you install the game from the commonly available, poorly done cracks. If you're using an install from real disks and just bypassing the cd on startup, whichever method you like should be fine.

[jsalemi]

Download daemontools and install it.  I suggest 3.4 if you can find it.  I tried the 3.6 but it gave my old puter problems. *shrugs* If you have a brand new, shiney compy, then you probably don't have to worry so much.

Why such an old version?  Daemontools is up to 4.09, which was recently released and works fine.  I've been using the 4.x versions since they were released with no problems at all.

[Tyyppi]

I always crack my games. It gets so tiresome to insert the disc and then take it out and then insert it and so on. It also lowers the risk of your disc exploding into smithereens...

[J. M. Pescado]

Disks are now very cheaply made, high-speed drives spin them much faster than CDs were originally specced to be used at, and copy protection keeps them spinning unnecessarily. They WILL eventually explode. Virtual drives, however, do not use real disks and if a CD image explodes, you just put a new copy in. I don't think virtual drives actually emulate the CD exploding, though.

However, note that if your actual CD explodes, the results can cause injury or death by shrapnel. Which is bad.

[witch]

I opened a drive one day, it must have been faulty as the disk was still spinning as the tray came out, it frisbeed across the room - very scary as it whizzed past my head. My techie ex has had a near shrapnel experience.

[SaraMK]

I wouldn't be surprised if a cd drive could  kill you with an exploding disk. I was almost killed by a portable cd player once... I accidentally hit the open button while it was playing, and it launched the CD at my head with the force of a speeding bullet.

[KatEnigma]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot this PSA:

Don't put cracked CD's into your drive. As you noticed, they explode. 

Whether it's the drive's fault or the CD's fault that it cracked, who knows, but once it was cracked, you shouldn't have used it.

And last I checked, EA charged $10 for the replacement disk. Although, you're within the 90 day warranty on it too, so it might not cost you anything. If the "my mom gave me this game" trick doesn't work, you might want to try that route.

[Ambular]

Another option (though you need the actual disk to set it up) is GameJackal, which costs ten bucks to register and lets you make a bona fide legal no-CD image of practically any game you own.  Easier than hunting down a crack or .ISO or whatever for each one.

[Zazazu]

Good news! The "cracked" .exe works with the EALink download of Seasons. I'm patched as well. I downloaded and installed it, then unplugged my internet cable. Loaded just fine!