Install problem...

LoLth

Motherboard died a while ago so I took the opportunity to upgrade the system.

spec:
P4 3.0
D915GAGL
2gb Ram (dual channel, A: 1gb, B: 2x512)
Club X600 Radeon 256mb card
2x 120gb SATA
running winXP pro sp2

all is loveliness and joy except when I went to reinstall WoW. The install gets to a random point and cant find the directory it is installing to. I have tried each of the partitions on the drives (3 total) and the reuslts have been seemingly completely random...

1st attempt: installed up as far as terrain.mpq on CD1 and then just stopped.
2nd attempt: installed up to models.mpq and then stopped
3rd attempt: go to CD2, terrain mpq and stopped
4th attempt: got to CD3, interface.mpq and returned an error that it couldnt find \program files\world of warcraft even though I could see the directory being created etc...
5th attempt: Back to terrain.mpq on CD1, error about an unreadable drive
6th attempt: CD1 terrain.mpq no error message.

Each time it stalled without an error message I checked application and processes. the installer showed running in applications and the installation service was running happily at 50% of CPU (varied between 49 and 51).
No HD activity, No CD activity.
Could browse to the drive fine (HD and CD).

Everything else has installed fine. DirectX ver. is 9.0c, Opengl 2.0 is supported, HD has been error checked and defragged (even ran a format on one of the partitions to make sure) no joy.

any ideas? Do I need to pop back in an IDE drive?
Will cross post this on the windows forum to see if theres any ideas there.

Drakar

I'd suggest posting it on the WoW support forum on the WoW website. They'd be more familiar with different problems people get installing the game. They'll also be glad of the chance to see a post that doesn't deal with complaints about lag :P

Ivan

Problems with installing programs can be a sign of defective or soon to be, defective RAM. Check it out.

LoLth

Ram was put through a ram tester before I put it into the system (just to beon the safe side) no problems were found.

Looks like several people are having an almost identical problem

http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-tech-support-en&t=58608&p=1&tmp=1#post58608

but no reply from blizzard so far. Dammit, I was looking forward to playing it this weekend!

Pimp Ninja

Had problems like this patching some other games before.

Have you tried a disk defrag? (seriously im not taking the phish)

Also you have 2 hard drives are these set up in 1 virtual volume or 2 or more seperate volumes?
If theyre split have you tried installing it to a different drive?

koneko

Out of interest, could you try copying the contents (install/game) to the HD, and installing from there?
Sounds odd anyways

BKtje

sure its not the cd drive having problems?
Got another you could try?

LoLth

Tried changing cable to all drives. tried in a DVD drive and a cd drive. Copied the disks to the HD and no errors popped up. Also tried running the install from there after copying CD1, it got to terrain.mcq again

There are two seperate disks, not merged into one large volume, tried all partitions. Drive has been defragged in safemode and was recently formatted, fragmentation is only at about 1% or so.

Static M.e.

I had a somewhat similar problem when I was first installing WoW kept crashing out inbetween CD 2 and 3 even got to 4 at one stage and died.

I burnt the game to a DvD and copied the files directly across has worked perfectly since.

Lolth if you are in Dublin, ill burn you a copy tonight, drop me a PM if I catch it before I go to sleep tonight Ill bring it in to Dublin City tomorrow night, also if you in Galway I can sort one aswell for you.

Forgot to add im leaving Dublin tomorrow @3 so it will have to be before then.

Good luck

Drakar

You forgot to mention if you were hoarde or alliance, bet those alliance guys have the answer but don't want to tell. :P

LoLth

Static M.e. wrote:

I had a somewhat similar problem when I was first installing WoW kept crashing out inbetween CD 2 and 3 even got to 4 at one stage and died.

I burnt the game to a DvD and copied the files directly across has worked perfectly since.

Lolth if you are in Dublin, ill burn you a copy tonight, drop me a PM if I catch it before I go to sleep tonight Ill bring it in to Dublin City tomorrow night, also if you in Galway I can sort one aswell for you.

Forgot to add im leaving Dublin tomorrow @3 so it will have to be before then.

Good luck

thanks static but I can t get in to town tomorrow. appreciate the offer though. Tech support from blizzard has recommended I use a ram cleaner to clear out the ram completely in between disk changes. they recommend memturbo.... will give it a go and see what happens.

DRakE

LoLth wrote:

Ram was put through a ram tester before I put it into the system (just to beon the safe side) no problems were found.

Looks like several people are having an almost identical problem

http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-tech-support-en&t=58608&p=1&tmp=1#post58608

but no reply from blizzard so far. Dammit, I was looking forward to playing it this weekend!

If it's any consolation to you,

It's an amazing game you can't live without.

LoLth

well, I got it reinstalled. Ram cleaner didnt work at all.

Had to put back in the IDE drive and it installed without a worry.

Is anyone else using SATA HDs in their machine? is WoW installing ok on them?

BKtje

Installed fine on my sata's.

Static M.e.

Also using SATA HDs Raptor + diamond

Dubhthamlacht

I also had this problem installing on my the families Pc. There was the standard DVD Rom and a CD Rewriter. Both would install the first CD and the stall just at the point of asking for the second CD. After about 6 attempts it worked and I honestly don't know how/why it worked.

Saying that I got a new laptop a month ago and it installed fine so I'd say it's a PC problem rather than a problem with the game CD's