New Laptop questions

cormie

Hi, the list will probably get bigger, but for my first question:

In "my computer" it displays a D and E drive, both are CD drives, one is a DVDRW drive and the other just says CD DRIVE. However, there is only one actual place you can put a CD/DVD.

I installed ISS PRO EVO 3 on the laptop, it installed but when I restarted and when I click "play" the CD drive spins or whatever, but then nothing happens. It installed it ok and it plays DVDs fine. any ideas? Could it be to do with the 2 cd drives?

Shrimp

did you at any time ever have an external cd drive?

cormie

I just bought the laptop brand new this morning!?? thanks for reply

Shrimp

oh.. thats odd.. em when you put the cd in.. does it go to d or e? i'm guessin it's d

cormie

yep, it goes to D (DVDRW Drive in My computer) haven't seen any action with Drive E yet.

When i click eject in my computer on drive D, it ejects what I just put in, when i do it on drive E, nothing happens

Shrimp

ok.. well right click on e and go to properties.. post up that dialog box if you could..

thanks!

cormie

Gen:
type:CD DRIVE
File system: unknown
used 0
free 0

AUTOPLAY:
diff options

HARDWARE:
TOSHIBA MK80..... DISK DRIVES
QSI DVDRW SDW-042.......DVD/CD-R..
VOBID InstantDrive CD SCSI CdRom D... DVD/CD-R..

SETTINGS
InstantWrite Driver

NAME: VOBID....
REVISION : 14

iw file system active (checked)
Autoformat (Checked)

SHARING
bla bla bla



I'm guessing its something to do with the VOBID drive? when I click its properties in HARDWARE tab, I get this info:

GENERAL:
name
device type: blah
manufacturer: blah
Location: Bus number 0, Target ID 0, Lun 0

Device status:
Working properly and enabled usage

then there are more tabs for it, properties, dvd region, volumes and driver. nothing really informative there

Basq

The only reason i can think of as to why you have an extra CD drive is use of an emulation CD backup program, such as Alcohol 120%.. which allows you to create a virtual CD drive to run ISO files from.

Or in other words (from Manufacturer's Description):

Alcohol 120% can handle the creation of 31 virtual CD and DVD-ROMs, allowing the user to play discs without needing the physical disc. Users can copy CDs and DVDs to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, and DVD+RW discs. The reading speed of a virtual CD-ROM is 200x. It supports normal CD, DVD, and CD RAW subchannel reading methods. The RAW reading method enables users to emulate all CDs. Alcohol 120% supports numerous CD (CD-DA, CD+G, CD-ROM, CD-XA, VideoCD, Photo CD) and DVD (DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio) formats and all current (ATAPI & SCSI) drives. The latest version adds two more profiles to the data type options and includes support for unusually formatted DVD+RW discs formatted by other software.

But then again, it is a new laptop... that's quite bizarre!

Shrimp

yeah.. check the bios on start up.. see if it recognises it there! if not.. then it's prolly what Basquille said!

cormie

Is that a good or bad thing to have? Bizarre in a good or bad way?

Basq

Well, Alcohol 120% is an amazing program!

I use it to "backup" those discs i just can't find anymore! :rolleyes:

I had hassle with a floppy drive i installed before - had to change it in the BIOS from a 5 1/4" to 3.5"... all worked grand!

Don't go messing around in the BIOS though - just change what you need to!

cormie

ok cool.

I don't really want to venture into the bios for anything... do I have to?

any idea why ISS is having trouble starting? I got it going there for the first time... and now again.. I dont know why it hasn't been working the other times... both times I got it working I didnt have the USB to PS2 controller plugged in to the USB though

Shrimp

I know yeah.. dont mess around with the bios.. just see if it recognises it!

cormie

ok, it says "Unable to authenticate original disc within time limit"
thats when I clicked ISS by the way.. would it be the disc itself or the cd drive do you think?

Shrimp

hey one thing.. where'd you buy it?

cormie

here

Its starting to annoy me the fact it wont play ISS properly.

cormie

what do you think shrimp? dodgy buy? I'm having doubts about it with this damn ISS game.

Da_cOmRaDe_MiKe

if there was a problem with the laptop where would you bring it? lidl?
cos i dont think they offer tech support on that...
i cant belive you paid 1300 for that...
im just after building my own p.c for 1300 give or take a few quid, and its a beast compared to what you have there.
now, i know laptops are expensive and handy to have, but do you use it a lot for travelling? or is it for games?

Shrimp

have a go at bringin it back to the shop.. they might let you excange it! :rolleyes:

cormie

Others say you wont find similar specs cheaper for laptop.

Yes, I need a laptop and I don't need more than what is on this. The only game I play is ISS, I'm not a game player. WiFi should come in handy too.

cormie

Ok so I installed XP pro, formatted the partition and started a new leaf.

Checked my computer and there is only one CD drive now. I think it may have been from software? Pinnacle studio software maybe.

Wertz

The item description from aldi said it had a 4-in-1 card reader, right? If so the E: drive is usually defaulted to card readers or external devices.
Cards like SD xD and the other types can be put in the reader to avoid having to hook the actual device that uses them up to the USb ports...

I'm guessing if you've just reformatted that one of the driver disks someplace will have the stuff you need to get it working, or it could be plug and play in XPpro

cormie

I was thinking that but it said the removeable disc was a CD Drive and had a picture of a CD, maybe it is though. I wouldn't know :rolleyes:

Wertz

cormie wrote:

I was thinking that but it said the removeable disc was a CD Drive and had a picture of a CD, maybe it is though. I wouldn't know :rolleyes:

My USB 4-1 card reader shows up in explorer as "Removable drive" and has a CD drive icon. If you'll not be using this feature then it won't matter but those little xD cards are fierce handy and are almost cheaper than USB memory clips...

Mr. Presentable

I have a laptop from Dell with XP Pro, shows a DVD-Rom and a CDRW as separate drives when in fact they are a single combo drive. The CDRW shows active when a CDR is in, the DVD-Rom is active when a DVD is in. If it works, why would you be bothered by it?

cormie

Unfortunately I just tried ISS PES 3 in my friends laptop and it is working fine. Any ideas why it wont play in mine?

Some weird things have been happening with the CD Drive.

Sometimes it just says DVD Drive in my computer if say a DVD is in and if I right click eject nothing happens so I have to restart and then it will have the name of the DVD in my computer and eject will work.

It installed XP with no problem from the CD and it plays DVDs no problem besides the one mentioned above.

It installed ISS fine but when installation completed and I have been given the "play game" option, it just wont load!

It has loaded properly about 3 times out of about 30 tries


Do I need new drivers? what could be the problem? everything else seems fine. Yet when it came out of sleep mode it crashed a minute or so later.

I don't want to have to deal with tech support or anything like that.

thanks!

carbsy

I have the same laptop,no probs.The problem seems to be the copy protection not liking the dvd drive.Eidos had problems like this with Championship Manager a few years ago...

cormie

Do you have the exact same laptop with pro evo 3?

carbsy

I don't have any problems personally (hehe).But it looks to be a dvd rom issue with the copy protection used...

cormie

have you any idea how I can get around it? Why would it work on yours and not mine though? It did start about twice. How come it could start them two times? What are the chances the actual laptop is at fault?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

carbsy

cormie wrote:

have you any idea how I can get around it? Why would it work on yours and not mine though? It did start about twice. How come it could start them two times? What are the chances the actual laptop is at fault?

I don't actually have the game, I'm just speculating.On a side note though, I'm delighted with the laptop - great piece of kit!

cormie

carbsy wrote:

I don't actually have the game, I'm just speculating.On a side note though, I'm delighted with the laptop - great piece of kit!

everything but that is fine:)

any chance you could get a lend of the game and see if it works on yours? should be a pretty common game to get hold of. ISS PRO EVOLUTION 3

cormie

By the way.. when I click on the PES3 icon on desktop with disc in sometimes a dialogue box saying "Unable to authenticate original disc within time limit" comes up with options retry or cancel.

I'm not sure if I already mentioned this in the post but maybe it will help determine the problem ?

cormie

Ok, I just tried to put in a Dave Matthews DVD, I had to eject it about 3 times before it recognised it. What's up with this!!?? Do you think my CD drive may be dodgy?

carbsy

I'd say you have a dodgy DVD drive mate, everything points to it.Make sure you register the laptop online at Gericoms website for support/warranty etc.

cormie

thats such a pain. And I doubt I can take it back to Aldi for an immediate replacement either!

If you can get your hands on PES 3, could you let me know how you get on with it please?
thanks:)

SoBe

i got the laptop myself yesterday,im having no issues with it at all.i have been playing far cry on it and no problems with dvds at all.sounds like you might just be unlucky with the dvd drive mate.bring it back to aldi and see if you can exchange it,i have always found them excellent to deal with.

wish you the best of luck with it and hope you get it sorted out

cormie

Ah fli, your the guy who replied to me at 7 or so in the morning before I got it:) would Aldi exchange it? Do you think they have one to give me in return? Do they not just get a certain amount in to attract people to their stores or do they actually stock them (at the usual price of €1499 as it said on the poster?) where did you get yours? Do you think it is the dvd drive or could it be something else? thanks

SoBe

if its faulty and they have more in stock i cant see why they wont exchange it,i got mine in longford and there still in stock here as far as i know.
im not sure but it could be just a faulty drive.
my only problem here is i want to connect it to my pc so i can transfer files to the laptop,i havent tried it yet any idea what the best way to do it is?

cormie

Well I kinda wanted to use all the same settings as on my current laptop(the one I'm using now) there is a "file transfer wizard" and there is a help tab that tells you what you need, something about a laplink card (I really don't know, this is just what I read when looking myself) but to transfer files (personal files, documents, pictures or what not) i just use my iRiver IHP-140 (its a hard drive based mp3 player with a 40gb hard drive, connects to each laptop through USB and i just dump files on that, then put them on the new laptop). I wouldn't be sure of the best way to do it otherwise, maybe you can connect laptop to pc somehow??? best wait for someone else to answer!

SoBe

yeah i might put up a post in the computer section or mabey someone in the know will see this here and reply

/me goes off with crossed fingers

cormie

Just one thing though,
I've put XP pro on it and formatted the HD and all that had to be done. Do you think this will effect warranty?

SoBe

it shouldnt cus you have all the installation discs that came with it you can just put it back the way it was cant you?

cormie

Ill give tech support a ring tomorrow and may pop it back to Aldi!

If you can get your hands on Pro Evo 3, could you test to see if it works and let me know please?

thanks!