"Cannot Locate the DVD-ROM"

[Furiey]

No you can't have daemon tools installed, you'll need to use sd4hide.

@tao welcome to the dark side!

After an errorless install, I still get the please insert correct CD message when I try to play the game, my LG DRD8160B does already have the latest firmware, I have no suspect programs installed, I can't try sd4hide as that won't run on Windows ME, the PIO thing doesn't work. Nothing will get it to acknowledge the disc is in the DVD drive. Looks like I'm going to have a lot more time for Civ 3 until get a new DVD player.

 

[didaskalia7]

Ok, dont know if this has been posted yet, but, I had the same problem
with switching of the cd's.
I went to the Civ4.exe and opened up properties, chose the compatibility
tab, changed to Windows NT (svc pack4)
Restarted the game, and IT WORKED!
I have played a flawless game, no crashes, no bugs, I have
tried 6 different civs with no problems. All the movies and music play without a hitch. I love it.
I played last night from 5pm to midnight, and I will be back at it tonight!
So far, so good!!
I run a 2.5Ghz, 1G ram, ATI Radeon 9200, Soundblaster 5.1

 

[Ignatiuz]

Where can I find sd4hide and alcohol 120% and a description how to use them?
They are new to me...

Is it like Daemon-tools?

 

[Seer]

It's really not specific to a brand of DVD drive... why?

If the drive can read the disc to install, it should be able to read the disc as part of launch. Only thing I can think of here is badly pressed DVD's or cheap quality DVD's being used where the Safedisc sectors can barely be read. Thus buying a new drive as some of you have ridiculously have done, will probably let it work a while, but as soon as the lens gets a little dirty you will be back at square one.

I also have several other safedisc 4 games which all work fine (FEAR, Q4 and I think even BF2 is SD4)

Also I can confirm it doesnt work on any of my 3 PC's each with different DVD drives of varying ages.

My main box has a brand new Samsung Dual Layer DVDRW (3 weeks old), Another box has just a standard Sony 16x DVD Drive,
The other has an older (6 months) Pioneer DVDRW

Anyway to come to my cynical conclusion, The game was obviously rushed out before the Take2 takeover and once again its the customers who suffer. Well guess what? Ya just lost one... Game is to be returned at lunchtime

 

[rob3_300]

I was using Alcohol 120% in its default profile of audio. Just doing the image now. Got all the other software ready to roll... fingers crossed.

 

[rob3_300]

Works fine. Thanks for the fix.

 

[aswad]

I have a solution. Is easy, create a new user in windows, with limitated action, and play, because the problem are Nero, Emule, WinOncd, LimeWire, etc... This new user is clean of all.

(sorry, my english is very bad, I don´t speak english)

Sólo hay que crear una nueva cuenta de usuario en windows, no como administrador sino con el acceso limitado, y tener instalado el juego desde la cuenta de administrador. Eso es todo, desde esa nueva cuenta, que no tiene acceso ni a programas de grabación de cd-dvd ni a P2P, se juega sin ningún tipo de problema. Yo vengo arrastrando este desastre desde el Civ3, sólo que lo compré cuando ya llevaba mucho tiempo en el mercado y pude conseguir un crack nocd rápidamente. Pero ahora ha vuelto a ocurrirme lo mismo, no reconoce el cd, y bueno, esta solución que os doy a mí me ha funcionado estupendamente, desde luego sigue siendo una barbaridad tener que hacerse un usuario nuevo para jugar a un juego, pero mejor que tratarlo como si fuera pirata sí que es, ¿verdad?
Que lo disfrutéis.

 

[Ignatiuz]

Im not sure if its ok ta ask this on the forum, if not please remove my message.

I tried to unpack the sd4hide with my rar prog yesterday, but it failed.
Anyone know where I can download another copy of it (without rar)?

Its stupid that you have to do this to get the game to work on the computer!

If this not work I will return the game and re-buy it when the first or second patch is out...

 

[MaartenVidal]

Why isn't there any online help for European buyers? On their site, they tell us crap about "the first cd-rom" whilst we only have one dvd-rom... doesn't 2KGames/Firaxis care about customers over here??
Sid Meyer can be sure that I will NEVER play with the American civilization
BTW... did anybody find a solution yet?

 

[Furiey]

Just tried changing the jumpers on my CD and DVD drives so that the DVD was the Master and the CD was the Slave.

Still didn't work

 

[Pseudofool]

I do get it to work sometimes. And then other times it fails to recongize the disc is at all I have NEC DVD-RW drive. I have sd4hide, but this doesn't work either. What bugs me is the inconsitency...it will work three times in a row, then not at all. I've returned the game twice and the third copy works the best, but after while i think it works less and less. Since I bought the game I should be able to use it; I don't even have alchol 120% so I'm not sure what's preventing me from playing, i do have dvd43, but that's not for games. Any ideas of what I should do? Should I do the whole make an image thing with Daemno tools...I don't know how to do this. Any help?

 

[Gyner]

Hi!

Had the same problem as you guys. Fixed it with anti-blaxx

Install, and right click the disk-icon in the system tray and select Settigns. Click on "first game" and select "SafeDisk" in the "Protection" field. Then browse to "Civilization4.exe" in the "Game" field. Leave the others blank. Click "Close"

Right click the disk-icon again, select "Run" and then "Civ" (Or whatever you named it).

This wil disable safedisk, and you'll be able to launch the game.

 

[Furiey]

Sorry, but no joy with anti-blaxx for me, athough it does change the message, now it says to insert the correct DVD (which it actually is) rather than the correct CD

 

[Pseudofool]

all other CDs work...my DVD-R drive won't even reconginze a disc at all. Blax, Daemon tools whatever, won't work. This is the longest stretch with this disc that it has not worked.

This is so frustrating.

 

[CJ Bill]

Ok, dont know if this has been posted yet, but, I had the same problem
with switching of the cd's.
I went to the Civ4.exe and opened up properties, chose the compatibility
tab, changed to Windows NT (svc pack4)
Restarted the game, and IT WORKED!
I have played a flawless game, no crashes, no bugs, I have
tried 6 different civs with no problems. All the movies and music play without a hitch. I love it.
I played last night from 5pm to midnight, and I will be back at it tonight!
So far, so good!!
I run a 2.5Ghz, 1G ram, ATI Radeon 9200, Soundblaster 5.1

Some improvement... still throws the error message but it does it within seconds rather than minutes and still recognises my DVD drive afterwards!

 

[marinosm]

i ve downloaded a program from gameburnworld which detects wether a file has some sort of security.
its called protection 1dv5. after you download it just run it enter the file name u wish to be examined and in a few seconds it tells u what kind of protection it has
on my civ found safedisk 4.60
the thing is i don't know how to work around it.
i ve downloaded antiblaxx, alcohol 120%, but i dont know how to use them
any ideas?

 

[Furiey]

yep - it's SafeDisc 4 that Civ 4 uses. If you have XP (I don't) sd4hide is the best place to start, link is probably in the thread above somewhere or google for it. I've never had to use this type of program before so can't really advise you, but couldn't get it to work with those.

 

[Mattholz]

i ve downloaded antiblaxx, alcohol 120%, but i dont know how to use them
any ideas?

Make (or download a mini-) image of the Civ4-DVD.

Mount it in your VirtualDrive software. I used Daemon Tools (free for private use) for that.

Use Software that hides this virtual drive from Safedisc4.6 (aka antiblaxx or s4hide). I used s4hide.

Play the game! ...this worked for me.

 

[Super Sheep]

Errr.. the game works.. the "Can't Locate disc" doesn't show up. The game seems to load until BAM.

df394b.tmp error...

WTF?

 

[marinosm]

Make (or download a mini-) image of the Civ4-DVD.

Mount it in your VirtualDrive software. I used Daemon Tools (free for private use) for that.

Use Software that hides this virtual drive from Safedisc4.6 (aka antiblaxx or s4hide). I used s4hide.

Play the game! ...this worked for me.

i dont have daemon tools!!
where can i find them?
is it possible a walkthrough as how to mount etc...cause i never used that before
like step by step...
do i have to have the dvd in my dvd/rw drive?

thanks