patch makes cd unreadable

[mglewis]

I installed Civ III on my PC (which runs Windows ME), and it ran just fine.

Then I installed the patch. After this, I couldn't run Civ III anymore. I would receive an error saying that the system couldn't find the CD and asked me to insert it. However, the CD was sitting in the drive, with the drive spinning, but for some reason it wasn't reading it.

Eventually, after rebooting several times and still having no luck, I uninstalled Civ III and reinstalled it. Lo & behold, it now worked again.

Just today I downloaded the patch directly from the Civ III site -- foolishly thinking that this "official" patch might somehow work without causing this problem -- and of course the same problem occurred.

What should I do? Does it seem like there is a problem with the way my PC is set up? Is there some setting I need to change, or some trick to try with the patch?

Thanks.

 

[mglewis]

I still don't know what's causing this, but I found a work-around.

The problem happened when I installed the files from my hard drive. Because I have a slow CD-ROM, I copied all the files into a folder on my hard drive, and installed it from there.

Once installed, it ran properly. But when I installed a patch, it would look for the CD, not find it, and basically the game hung there, in the initialization stages.

The way I got around it is to install it from a different, external CD-ROM. When I did this and installed the patch, it found the CD properly.

Why this should be an issue, I don't know. But something in the patch seems to point it to a very definite place when starting the game, and unless it was installed from CD-ROM, this might be a problem.

 

[Sodak]

Hmm... I get this same error message. However, I did install (and re-install) the game from the CDROM. After adding the patch, the CD drive cannot be found - for this CD only. Any ideas?

 

[Richard III]

I've been having problems for ALL cd's since I patched.

 

[Isak]

I have a similar problem but only if any other cd than the Civ3 cd has been in the drive during the current windows-session.

The only thing that helps is to restart my computer and insert the Civ3 cd as the first cd. It is a "feature" in the copy-protection scheme which is apparently not very good at working with some cd-rw and a few cd-rom drives.

The only long-term solution (bar a few illegal options) would be to pester Infogrames for using this sloppy copy-protection scheme, so much that they would eventually be spending more time (and money) on dealing with angry customers than they would lose on pirated cd's.

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by Isak
The only long-term solution (bar a few illegal options) would be to pester Infogrames for using this sloppy copy-protection scheme, so much that they would eventually be spending more time (and money) on dealing with angry customers than they would lose on pirated cd's.

Yes, over-protect a CD of a game more and more players are getting fed up with, from a company that has already proven it is crap.

I think Infogrames marketing has really messed up with Civ3.

 

[HighCouncil]

www.gamecopyworld.com

There find a no CD patch.
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READ THIS:
Downloading a no CD patch from www.gamecopyworld.com and/or any other location and/or use it is ONLY legal, if you own the original version of the product (Civilization 3 (R) ), that will be used with the no CD patch. Further, this no CD patch is an unofficial product of a third party and gives no warranty in any way. You use it at your own risk. Any other conditions are determined by the law of the USA, your country and/or the county, where the product is produced and/or licensed.

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For more information read:
Civfanatics.com forums/civ3 technical support/cracks
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[Isak]

I use the No-cd crack myself, and will continue to do so until this problem is fixed, but Gamecopyworld's notice is unfortunately not worth anything - they hold no right over the software and can not decide whether or not it is legal - that is Infogrames sole right and according to the readme:

You may not cause or permit the disclosure, copying, renting, licensing, sublicensing, leasing, dissemination or other distribution of the Software or the Documentation by any means or in any form, without the prior written consent of Infogrames Interactive. You may not modify, enhance, supplement, create derivative work from, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Software to human readable form.

I doubt that Infogrames will ever enforce the paragraph above, as it would also mean the end of modding but it clearly states that the No-cd crack is illegal.

Gamecopyworld are just trying to cover their backs with that clause

The saddest thing is that this problem won't go away until A) the CD protection scheme is removed or replaced or B) The company that created it decide to fix this very ugly bug.

OT: While looking for the readme, I accidentally checked the Properties of the "CIV 3 O-D I G.DOC" in the root directory. Take a look at the writer and title properties on that document