[Vindicare]

Ok this is a strange problem
I have Dawn of War game of the Year addition. So I have the original game, and the Winter Assault expansion pack. I have a rather new PC i think.
Its an ACER Travelmate
It has 512MB RAM
2.9 Ghz processor
Good video card etc, but none of that is the problem, it runs Dawn of War fine on full video seetings, audio etc, run brilliant on full settings, as do all other games I play.
Only problem is this.
My DVD drive is good too, it runs and burns all types of DVD's and CD's, never had a problem.

However I have just bought Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. It is straight from the box, place it in my drive, and nothing happens. It makes a few sounds like it is attempting to load, then does nothing. On occassion my computer freezes up pretty bad. I get no image come up in My Computer, nothing happens. It is highly frustrating.

The only other game this has ever happend with is Total War: Eras, in other words all the Total War discs did the same thing. Nothing loaded, or worked. Just plain nothing happens.

It is driving me mad, i have a great laptop, evertyhing runs fine, games are great, and whats more is i laready ahve Dawn of War and its WA expansion! So i know the game runs, have they changed the type of disc they use for this game? I'm just stumped. Is it a driver problem they're disc, firmware, dvd-ram issues, i just have no idea.

My disc drive is a
TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-L632B

Driver info:
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Date 01/07/2001
Driver version: 5.1.2535.0
Digital Signing: Microsoft Windows Publisher

I ran Disc Detector or something like, it basically says my CD/DVDW drive can run and play and burn anything, so I am confused as to why it won't read this disc.

Please, any help?

Richard

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Ok go to

>Start
>My computer
>Doubleclick On Your Disk Drive


Make sure you don't double click on your Hard drive disks
But double click under Devices with removable Storage.
It should have the name of the game under the CD.Like
DOW Crusade.

[Snippy]

Ok go to

>Start
>My computer
>Doubleclick On Your Disk Drive


Make sure you don't double click on your Hard drive disks
But double click under Devices with removable Storage.
It should have the name of the game under the CD.Like
DOW Crusade.

[ZEUS_GB]

Hello Vindicare,

Do you have an external CD/DVD drive you can try?

[Vindicare]

Cheers for replying soon

I don't have an external drive yet, i know it's not the disc, or i'm failry sure, its brand new from the box.
I am going to see if a shop near me has a cheap one, otherwise i'll order one on-line though it is a bit annoying to have to do that. I was reading that apparently even if your drive is a DVD-RAM or DVDW that is no good, it has to be a standard DVD-ROM or something, which i find very perculiar.

I am not sure I understand the comments from the first post, it simply doesn't seem to read the disc, I will try what you have said though. Thankyou.

Any other advice or knowledge about DVDW/DVD-RAM/DVD-ROM might be helpful.

Thankyou
Rick

[Vindicare]

Oh, i understand what snippy was saying now,
Hehe, yeah I already tried that as standard, I'm a fairly competent user i think, I mean this is really why its confusing me a lot, hardware isn't my thing, software is! I've ruled out most software problems now, I just really need to know if there are any good idea, or if i really do have to buy a damned drive!

One interesting point, every so often i do get a hmm how do we put this, a spinning CD symbol comes up next to the mouse, which i think means its reading it. It makes all the usual good wirring sounds in the drive, but when in My Computer it just says (E) DVD-RAM (or whatever it says), and whenever i try to access it, double click etc it just freezes up.

Thanks
Rick

[ZEUS_GB]

Some drives have problems reading copyright protected CD's/DVD's. For example my LG DVD-ROM drive wouldn't read the FarCry DVD but the external drive I borrowed from work would.

Before buying a new drive, try updating the firmware on the drive and try changing the transfer mode of the drive to PIO only mode.

Edited by ZEUS_GB, 05 November 2006 - 12:45 PM.

[Vindicare]

Thankyou AGAIN for the quick reply!
Can't express how helpful that always is from you guys.

Ok, that all sounds hopeful and useful and backs up something I spotted about copy protected DVDs/CD's.
For instance the Total War: Era's works frine on my girlfriend laptop, and her laptop is older and her disc drive is much older then mine, but it worked fine for her, not on mine!.

Ok, a couple of things. How dod I update my Firmware/drivers? I have tried looking, I think i posted what my specs were at the top of the page, I can add more if that will help, but I can't find anything, if you could find or suggest any sites for me that would be great. And what is this PIO? or whatever it was, I am jsut replying and can't remember what you said, POI, PIO? How do I change to that mode etc? Could you guide me throught that please.

Thanks again,
Rick

p.S I was planning on buying an external just so Dark Crusade and Total War: Eras will work, so if all those options you suggested failed, any suggestion for a good external drive?

[ZEUS_GB]

You should be able to download the required tools for the firmware update at the Acer website.

The transfer mode can be changed under IDE controllers in device manager