rec.autos.simulators

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Colin
ICQ 25485061
FFRL Triv: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
FFRL: http://www.racesimcentral.net/

This happens every so often, has been covered in various IT
publications, but seems to be happening more often than it used to be,
can't remember the specifics, but it seems to happen more with CD's from
some game companies that others, and the one we've seen most over here
is "Sims" from EA

But with relatively few incidents, less than 10 or here so far this
year, that may be very skewed, but it has happened to at least 4 Sims
CD's so far, and 2 or 3 other EA titles

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

"The Pits"    http://www.theuspits.com/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels"
--Groucho Marx--

I would suspect the CD didn't explode, but rather the drive ate it.  First
thing I'd do is get a new CD drive.  I sure wouldn't trust that one again.

Not sure what Sierra's replacement policy is in this case, and if you ask
them you'll never hear from them, so it sounds like a purchase of a new game
CD as well :-(

Addtionally, I have never heard of a long delay to get past the
Secur-rom. Mine takes like 3 secs. (However, EA games take a
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time). Sounds a lingering problem with the CDROM.
My suggestion is to leave the unti as it is and physically remove it
from the computer case and THEN try to open it and remove any pieces.
The drive itself is probably shot, but no sense in ruining the whole
computer.

Lawman

You're probably right about the first bit, it was just a coincidence, but as
for the secure Rom thing, it's been much mentioned in here about it. Your
CDRom obviously seems to be 'compatible' with it, for lack of a better word,
but some of us have mentioned (even in N4 days) that it takes forever to
load up.

Anyway, my CDRom seems to be working again, but I'm now minus a N2002
CD....(morality question, possibly rhetorical: is it ok to get a warez
version to replace an original that's still installed and broken through no
fault of my own? Probably not...)

Furthermore I don't think a warez'ed copy would work online .....?

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

http://www.theuspits.com

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels........"
--Groucho Marx--

NOTE: To replace your CD(s) please send only the damaged CD and a copy of your dated receipt, if
less then 90 days.  After 90 days please include a $10.00 handling fee along with the CD(s).  For
Documentation replacement, please include a $5.00 handling fee and a photocopy ONLY of either your
disk or CD.  Payment should be made at the time of your request.  Sorry, no credit cards.

--
Biz

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand
alloys and compositions and,......things with molecular structures,....and
the....." - Ash

50x seems to be the wall when it comes to the quality of today's CD
pressings.

-Larry

48x - so, as Goy says, this is well known? First I've heard of it....

Most likely the CD itself was a shoddy pressing, not being balanced well
enough (like a car wheel without the little lead weights on it) This has at
least two consequences:

1: the CD takes much, much longer to read, due to the poor spinning, and
may be "explained" (possibly incorrectly) as the copy protection, rather
than a physical fault.

2: the CD, being used daily, along with possibly other, badly pressed, and
unbalanced CDs, will wear out the bearings/little funky bits of plastic in
the CD drive hub, eventually   causing the drive to fail, the CD to fatigue
due to friction/stress, and therefore explode in the drive.

Summary: Sierra's Nascar Racing 2002 Season CD was badly pressed, and was
the direct cause of a sudden and *** failure of the CDRom drive.

Now, who wants to call the lawyers in?

Seriously, badly pressed CDs are a pet peeve of mine.  If anyone ever gets
a CD which hums badly in the drive, or takes "ages" to be recognised, don't
blame the copy protection immediately, rather return the goods to the place
of purchase and demand a replacement.  If the replacement also exhibits the  
same behaviour, then it's time to either- get a new CDrom drive, as other
bad CDs have ***ed it, demand your money back as the software doesn't
work on your PC, or find a no-cd crack while it's still legal to do so.

cheers
John

...   which reminds me, I forgot to follow up on that thread
-PlowBoy  (Sting32)

Nice answer - being as it used to do the same thing (apart from the
exploding, of course) in N4, too (but not other games) I guess it's that
previous CDs have ***ed it up.
 Man, you should have heard the explosion - I thought I was back in
Compton.....

Damn...I have a 52x.  N2002 doesn't always run the first time - neither does
D2.  Occasionally, the thing sounds like it's a jet engine revving for takeoff.

It gets a bit unnerving... :-(

Eldred
--
Homepage - http://www.racesimcentral.net/~epickett
Thanks to those of you who made a donation for *** cancer research.  The
walkathon is over, but donations are still being accepted.  Details on my
webpage.

Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Sorry about your problem, you could download a nocd-patch and be able
to race offline until you can get a replacement CD from Sierra.

Cheers,

/Martin

Next time, do what I do and get Daemon Tools and a cd ripping program
(like CloneCD). Download the image to the harddisk and let Daemon Tool
emulate the cd-rom. I have never had a single problem starting N4 or
N2002 after that. And it saves the drive :)

--
Olav Malmin
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