DVD's will not load

The program will not load. I keep getting "Data Error Cyclic Redundancy."

You get this when the dvd drive is struggling to read the disc. Often giving the disc a rinse under a tap ( then a very gentle wipe to dry it) will fix it. As long as it’s not scratched.

There are several reports of this and several posts… like this one..

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?334429-MSFS20-cd-download-failure

 

Did you get them from Aerosoft?

 

Regards

Steve

Years ago I had CDs commercially pressed and kept getting reports from users their drives were having trouble reading them. It was almost always people who bought Dell computers apparently because Dell used some brand of drive that just wasn’t up to reading discs with whatever issue the CDs had. The company that pressed the CDs re-ran the production run after I had enough people complain and I was able to send new discs out to anyone who had read issues.

 

The root cause was some manufacturing issue with the discs. Most drives could still read them ok but the Dell-supplied drives couldn’t for whatever reason. This sounds a lot like what happened to me. Some have no problem with the CDs but others do and dollar to a donut it’s a low cost or maybe just worn or out of spec drive keeping the discs from reading. Not truly the drive’s fault, but the drive exposes a manufacturing issue with the discs that most don’t see and that is what allowed the discs to make it to packaging and distribution.

 

As a guess…

Auto wax (paste) always works for me. It has brought back severely scratched disc and I was able to play them. DVD's as well. I've even used them on game disc that are certainly Bluray. Very rarely has this failed me.

 

EDIT. Auto PASTE wax!

Does disc 1 work ok?

 

Going by another post on this forum, you maybe able to download the sim from Microsoft, assuming the discs were bought from an official source of course.

Go into the MS Store and see if it says you own Microsoft Flight Simulator. If it does, then you can download it from there (standard version)

You will still need disc 1 in your drive to run it though.

 

Regards

Steve

Edited October 23, 2021 by g7rta

This can be caused by scratches or dirt on the disc or a fault in the DVD drive (perhaps theres dirt on the lens, a laser fault, mechanism fault etc).

 

Carefully clean the disk using chamois or you can buy a disk cleaning kit. If you have a portable DVD drive test it using that. Can also test it on another computer to see if Windows can see it on there.

 

You also get drive-cleaning discs that have a row of very soft bristles or other material on the playing side to gently clean the drive lens.

I will also add to be very careful when you are wiping the disc. If you go in a circular motion following the diameter of the disc, you can cause scratches, even with a microfiber, that will mimic the microscopic laser etched data rendering it useless. When wiping, go from the center out in sectors like a pie chart.

Solved the problem. I tried Xplane 11. No download problems and it seem to be working great!

Good bye Microsoft

Well whatever makes you happy. I have the DVD version and never had a read error on my external drive (my case does not have CD/DVD drive media slots). I would have encouraged you to buy a $20 external USB DVD drive like I had to buy, but your decision is made. Happy flying. Edited October 31, 2021 by N069NT

I was using an external USB drive