Cannot install FSX Gold

**minstermineman** · 02-20-2010, 03:45 AM

Hi guys and gals - first post but been using MS's flight sim products for some time now.

Last year I bought FSX Gold edition - loaded fine and was great to use.

This year I had my hard drive fail on me and so had to replace with a couple of new ones.

I now cannot install FSX Gold and have been trying for weeks now. In desperation I bought a completely new sealed edition of FSX Gold yesterday - which I still cannot load.

My machine spec

AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 6000+ 3.00 GHz
4Gb Ram
2 x 500mb Samsung hard drives in Raid (as one drive)
Vista 32 Home Premium
Graphics - Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X - 2 GB DDR5 - PCI-Express 2.0

The cd/dvd player is 100% fine, I can load any other game I own and it reads cd's and dvd's with no problem.

It is NOT a dirty or scratched disc set, it is only my SFX discs that wont play/install.

This is the FIRST disc - there are 3 - 2 for fsx and 1 for Accelaration, I cannot get the first disc to run to even start installation.

It does not show in 'my computer' when inserted

It spins up and is being read to a degree but not enough to show up in my computer - so I cannot even explore the disc and start setup from there.

If I start a command prompt and type D:setup.exe it will not start.

If I put it into my wifes laptop I can explore it - it is not the disc.

When exploring in another machine what files can I copy to start the installation process in my own pc?
I tried copying the setup files but just got errors when trying to install using these so there must be more to it than that.

There is a lot on the web about people having trouble when it comes to disc 2 - this is NOT that problem, I cant install disc one.

Many Thanks

Gerry

**gandy** · 02-20-2010, 05:03 AM

when a dvd drive just spins trying to read a disc it could be a faulty ( or not plugged in correctly ) lead or your dvd drive is starting to fail.

You could try unplugging the drive and check for dirt or dust on the leads.

**minstermineman** · 02-20-2010, 05:18 AM

Originally Posted by gandy

when a dvd drive just spins trying to read a disc it could be a faulty ( or not plugged in correctly ) lead or your dvd drive is starting to fail.

You could try unplugging the drive and check for dirt or dust on the leads.

As my first post -

The cd/dvd player is 100% fine, I can load any other game I own and it reads cd's and dvd's with no problem.

**Amtran618** · 02-20-2010, 09:03 AM

Its your dvd drive, try another one and youll see

**minstermineman** · 02-20-2010, 09:11 AM

I did already - this is a new one . . .

After copying both install disks contents to an external hard drive via my wifes laptop I have installed FSX onto my pc.

Now it wont accept any of the activation keys provided either the one for Flight sim x - pro or the one for Flight simulator x - xp

**Amtran618** · 02-20-2010, 09:21 AM

Alternatively, use the laptop and the free trial of http://www.vso-software.fr/products/...blindwrite.php to make an image file of each dvd, and copy the image files to a usb drive and paste them on your pc, than mount the image files to a virtual drive using the free http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtLite and problem solved

By using the above image and virtual dvd drive you wont get the activation problem because the pc thinks its the real disc

**Amtran618** · 02-20-2010, 09:35 AM

The problem is your drive, try a new brand and that will fix the problem. Some drives dont read some discs, the virtual drive and image will work

**minstermineman** · 02-20-2010, 10:24 AM

I'll try the virtual setup, but if the problem is supposedly drives not reading disks - why can my drive read disk 2 (to explore) and the Accelaration disk ok and not Disk 1 ?

Am I supposed to just keep buying drives until I find one that works - I dont think so !!! maybe you sell drives for a living