multi cd games

[plasmarox]

Hi all;

I have a problem installing games that have more than one CD.
When i install the first disk, everything is fine, but when it asks for the second, i stick the disk in, the drive spins and flashes for a few seconds, but then stops. The game stops installing and hangs.

The game im trying to install is Medieval II Total War.

I have a toshiba m70X laptop, Windows XP, 2048MB ram, 1.73Ghz Intel processor, ATI Radeon mobility X600 graphics card.

Thanks for reading.

[Laurie52]

I do not have Medieval II: Total War but after some searching, I read this has been a problem for some players. What you could do is a full manual installation from the Disk Two into a new folder.

This is what one person had to to after buying the game in England.

. Tried to install the game on my "gaming" PC - nothing happened when putting disc one, or disc two into my DVD-Rom drive. I tried via "My Computer" and again nothing, the label of the disc didn't even appear.

I tried the discs on my PC at work, the game installed fine with none of the above issues.

I tried the discs on my laptop, the first disc was recognised, auto-played and starting installing, when the prompt for the second disc appeared and disc two was placed in the drive, nothing happened, it just timed out and gave the "Not responding" message, I was subsequently unable to "End Task" this program, which seems to appear as "_ISnn.exe" where nn is a random number generated by the installer. It wasn't using any system resources.

I then tried exploring disc two, I could see it in "My Computer", I created a folder on my desktop called "MED2" and copied all of the files from disc two into the folder - this worked. I then rebooted the laptop, placed disc one back in and choose "Install", this progressed exceptionally quickly because it hadn't removed any of the files from the first attempt (they actually go into the install directory rather than a "Temp" directory, although the "Installer" files do go into a "Temp" directory. At the prompt for disc two I clicked on "Browse" and selected the folder "MED2" on my desktop and clicked ok. The installation continued and I am able to play the game.......

This is a *very* frustrating issue, I think in my case at least I have proven that my discs are "ok", as I've been able to install it at work problem free (Philips dvd-writer), and able to explore it at home on the laptop (Sony VAIO AR21S). What is frustrating is that I cant really return this to Play.Com for it to be exchanged, they test all returned software, so apart from the period of time it'll take, they might have a setup which it works on problem free (like mine at work), alternatively, they might not, in which case they'd send out another copy, which again, might have exactly the same problems.

It seems as if the installer might well have problems - being that it just crashes, perhaps we should all investigate in this direction instead of faulty discs?

Other posters wrote back saying this "manual installation" method worked for them. Or something like it. At first, they also thought it was faulty disks too until they got a new set with the similar "reading' problems with disk two.

A couple did say, they thought it might have to do with the "InStallShield" as they did have a similar problem with other games using this installer (Ceasar IV, Black and White, Stronghold 2) and had to update their drivers for it.

[plasmarox]

hmm, that seems like a good idea, but i'm unable to install from my desktop because i don't have enough disk space to store it and install it, as its a 14gb game :(