02-11-2006, 04:58 PM
A sudden compulsion just came over me. That compulsion being "Chaotic Evil Wild Mage". Yup, I've been stricken by the need to play one of my favourite games of all time: Baldur's Gate II.
So I locate my old box, a double-DVD case-sized box tucked in nice and tight beneath my Half Life Generation ("Now Includes Blue Shift!"), and I fish it out. I start a full install, then idly flick through the discs to remind myself just how long this is going to take.
Then I notice that disc 3 is not the original CD that came with the box when I bought it all those years ago on the same day that I bought my first 3D graphics card (A 64MB Hercules Kyro II. Wow). It's a painful reminder to kill the install and try and remember how to do a painfully needless manual install.
CD 3 is a CD-R disc that I burned myself. CD 3 had to be replaced because, for some reason, it had been stricken by an odd plague that I later discovered (During my Fallout years and the time I spent on Interplay's own boards) affected quite a few of their discs. The problem isn't "physical" in the sense that the disc surface is scratched, but an actual fault on the data layer of the disc. One particular file on CD 3 started to return bad CRC checks when being accessed, causing the operating system to hang and the install program to fail every time. CD 3 was replaced by having a friend send me a copy of that file over IRC DCC (It wasn't that big a file), and I then simply slotted the new good file into place on a blank disc with the working files from my original disc.
My memory was refreshed, and my eyes drawn to the copied discs of Fallout Tactics sitting above my head. I'd gone through hell looking for that increasingly rare game, and only managed to buy it when it came out as part of a Fallout collection literally days before Interplay collapsed - I'd managed to pre-order it, had it delivered, and then the company folded in on its console offerings and the very collection I bought vanished off the websites I had bought it from. I consider myself somewhat lucky.
Then, a few months later after I finished university and that friend disappeared into WoW only to never be seen again (I'm serious. Really), another file died.
On CD 4.
CD4/Movies/MovEnd.bif
File size 88.9MB.
Oddly enough, I've never managed to get around to fixing this until now. Still not sure what to do about this, in fact, since I'm a little leery about using Torrents for non-legal purposes, and I appreciate that it's a pretty hefty file to e-mail. I suppose the honest thing to do would to buy another copy, but Interplay's death and subsequent half-assed revival has made copies rare to find, and I'm actually loathe to hand over more of my money to fix their problem (Their CD replacement scheme cost about the cost of a new copy on budget to replace one disc). Plus, I hate buying games second-hand. I did buy a second copy of Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter when my original copy snuffed it in the same way, but only as part of the ultimate IWD collection that included IWD, HoW, IWD2+bonus disc and an excellent music CD. Really, IWD2 alone was worth the price I paid for the entire stack.
I'd appreciate any help, but I'm not begging for it. It is, after all, one of the largest files in all the discs.
But hey, if you have a particulary cherished Interplay title, I suggest that you take the time to back up the CD. Like I said, it's a pretty common problem.
So I locate my old box, a double-DVD case-sized box tucked in nice and tight beneath my Half Life Generation ("Now Includes Blue Shift!"), and I fish it out. I start a full install, then idly flick through the discs to remind myself just how long this is going to take.
Then I notice that disc 3 is not the original CD that came with the box when I bought it all those years ago on the same day that I bought my first 3D graphics card (A 64MB Hercules Kyro II. Wow). It's a painful reminder to kill the install and try and remember how to do a painfully needless manual install.
CD 3 is a CD-R disc that I burned myself. CD 3 had to be replaced because, for some reason, it had been stricken by an odd plague that I later discovered (During my Fallout years and the time I spent on Interplay's own boards) affected quite a few of their discs. The problem isn't "physical" in the sense that the disc surface is scratched, but an actual fault on the data layer of the disc. One particular file on CD 3 started to return bad CRC checks when being accessed, causing the operating system to hang and the install program to fail every time. CD 3 was replaced by having a friend send me a copy of that file over IRC DCC (It wasn't that big a file), and I then simply slotted the new good file into place on a blank disc with the working files from my original disc.
My memory was refreshed, and my eyes drawn to the copied discs of Fallout Tactics sitting above my head. I'd gone through hell looking for that increasingly rare game, and only managed to buy it when it came out as part of a Fallout collection literally days before Interplay collapsed - I'd managed to pre-order it, had it delivered, and then the company folded in on its console offerings and the very collection I bought vanished off the websites I had bought it from. I consider myself somewhat lucky.
Then, a few months later after I finished university and that friend disappeared into WoW only to never be seen again (I'm serious. Really), another file died.
On CD 4.
CD4/Movies/MovEnd.bif
File size 88.9MB.
Oddly enough, I've never managed to get around to fixing this until now. Still not sure what to do about this, in fact, since I'm a little leery about using Torrents for non-legal purposes, and I appreciate that it's a pretty hefty file to e-mail. I suppose the honest thing to do would to buy another copy, but Interplay's death and subsequent half-assed revival has made copies rare to find, and I'm actually loathe to hand over more of my money to fix their problem (Their CD replacement scheme cost about the cost of a new copy on budget to replace one disc). Plus, I hate buying games second-hand. I did buy a second copy of Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter when my original copy snuffed it in the same way, but only as part of the ultimate IWD collection that included IWD, HoW, IWD2+bonus disc and an excellent music CD. Really, IWD2 alone was worth the price I paid for the entire stack.
I'd appreciate any help, but I'm not begging for it. It is, after all, one of the largest files in all the discs.
But hey, if you have a particulary cherished Interplay title, I suggest that you take the time to back up the CD. Like I said, it's a pretty common problem.
When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
BattleTag: Schrau#2386
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
BattleTag: Schrau#2386
