Retarded Installation Question

[Sam the Limey]

Recently, I wiped all TS2 from my machine with the idea of reinstalling it all a fresh because it was getting glitchy and borked.

So I uninstalled all TS2 games and files, and realised my base game was missing from shelf of sim games.

I got a copy of The Sims Double Deluxe at walmart, since nightlife was alos missing anyway, put it in my machine...... and nothing. I can't get to the CD folder at all. If I go in through My Computer and try to double click the disk drive, explorer.exe completely crashes and has to be manually restarted.

Ordinarily, at this point, I'd be pissed off enough to just say bollocks to the lot of it, but since my TS3 is now crash-happy too, I'm left without any simming at all, which generates far too much free time in which I could be doing something constructive.

Any ideas? Am I being a total n00b and missing something? The drive IS a DVD drive. I checked ebcause i thought maybe I was being an idiot and jamming a DVD into a CD Rom drive or something.

[maxon]

Sounds like the drive is failing - are you having trouble reading other DVDs on the drive?

[jolrei]

Have you tried loading something else from your DVD drive to make sure it is the disk that is at fault and not a failed DVD drive?

Whoops.  Ninja'd by maxon.

[Sam the Limey]

I can run the Sims 3 disk in that drive without a disk load problem. I haven't tried sticking any other kind of DVDs in there though. I guess i could try with a movie or something and see what happens? I'll give it a shot and report back.

[Sam the Limey]

Riiiight. DVD Movies run fine, as does TS3 still. So perhaps it's the disk itself. I remember when University had problems and you had to manually install, except with this disk I can't even get far enough to look at the files TO manually install it. The moment I click on the DVD drive in my Computer, it locks up and goes to program not responding. I've left it sitting like that for a while to see if maybe it was just thinking about it, so to speak, but it doesn't appear that way. I'm going to try the disk on another machine and see if it's that.

P.S. Update: I'll have to report back later, the other machine is currently tied up by my better half and his rabid current obsession with warhammer.

[Sam the Limey]

Okay, it's not the disk, and it's not my DVD drive.

The disk loads fine on my beau's machine. And other DVDs load fine on my machine.

I'm stumped. Seriously.

[rufio]

Back up your data and reinstall Windows?

[snabul]

It is SECUROM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edit:

Get rid of securom and try it again.

[jolrei]

Get rid of securom and try it again.

Good point.  I'd momentarily forgotten about suck-u-rom.

[Sam the Limey]

I'm familiar with what securom is, but how do I get rid of it? </n00b>

P.S. Googling it now actually. Duhhh.

P.P.S. Curiouser and curiouser. Following these instructions, I actually don't seem to have Securom listed in my services. I'll hunt for other methods perhaps, unless it's just plain not on my machine.

[rufio]

There is a SecuROM removal thread stickied in this very forum.

If you're talking about the \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SecuROM folder, that will be hidden, so you will have to find a way to unhide it.  I don't know how to do that in Windows; I just use my linux partition.  Someone else here probably does, and has possibly posted step-by-step idiot-proof instructions in the aforesaid SecuROM thread.

[Sam the Limey]

Ah, cool, thanks. I'm still a n00b to this forum, so apologies for any redundancy on my part.

I have "Show Hidden Files and Folders" turned on already, so I'll got take a look.

[ritaxis]

It is possible to have Securom be present and not show up if you have show hidden files and folders enabled.  I found this out the hard way, and recorded my observations very deep in the securom thread, here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?action=search2