GREAT, my DVD drive exploded - anyone out there good with networking?

[LXS]

I bought HL2 the other day on DVD. Luckily, that was the same day my work DVD drive exploded, and was replaced with a CD drive.

I have access to DVD drives over a network, and i can install the bugger over the network, but when it comes to trying to register, it comes up with a "CD drive not found" error.

Anyone got any ideas? Is there any way of mapping a network DVD drive as a local drive? Windows sharing seems to happily set it as a network resource, and not a DVD drive that steam or anything else will recognise...

I'd personally quite like to download the Steam version of the game, but i've heard that it still requires the DVD in the drive to register that, so i'm stuck...

 

[Maxi]

No not really, since by doing that you could avoid having to use more than one cd/license copy of the game. IE it's illegal in a way. You need to have the DVD player in your computer.

 

[Link]

Thats not true, as you can still only have 1 copy registered to a single account.

LXS - On the computer with the DVD drive, go to My Computer, right click on the drive and select sharing. Share it with all permissions set.

Then, on your other machine, map to the drive (Right click on 'My network places' and hit 'Map network drive') and see if that works.

If not, assuming you have broadband, right click on HL2 in the play games browser and hit uninstall local content, then hit download and install once done. If it won't let you, completley uninstall steam, install the 600kb version, log on and it will let you.

 

[Maxi]

But he will still have to have the DVD in the drive while playing if he preloads from steam, it won't help if he downloads the content via steam.

 

[Link]

Just had a thought, download deamon tools and mount the DVD drive as a local drive (Will need the disk in)

I'm not sure if that will work (At work, can't check) but its worth a try.

MaxiKana - No, you only need the DVD in if you install from it. If you install via steam* you do not need the disk. As when he registered his HL2 key to steam it will be listed as having it, he can now download and play on any PC he logs into steam on, without a DVD.

*Just an fyi, preloading only happens "before" the download is usable. Now HL2 is ready to be used, its just an install or download. It dosen't matter, I'm just being picky

 

[Maxi]

It won't work. Valve have made sure of that.

 

[Link]

Dude, Valve specifiacally designed steam to be able to do that. The whole point of steam is that if you have a game registered to your account, you can download and play said game on any PC that you can log into steam on.

If you don't beleive me, before you go to bed, uninstall steam etc, then set it off downloading. If in the morning you still need the DVD to play you can come and tell me I am wrong.

 

[LXS]

K, i'll try both (steam first, as it seems the more legal option). I heard that you need the DVD in the drive when you're unlocking HL2 on steam even if you do install from a download?

I've looked up daemon tools and HL2 and it seems like i'll have to do some registry stuff, and i dont want to nuke my pc here at work...

 

[Link]

Not if you fully remove all trace of it. As I said above, the system is designed to let you download and run games on any PC, so the only way it wouldn't work is if there was a trace of it having been DVD installed (But tbh, I think this is just to make the install more convinient anyway).

Anyway, remove steam altogether if just uninstalling HL2 does not work, and you should be fine.

 

[wasted]

Dude, Valve specifiacally designed steam to be able to do that. The whole point of steam is that if you have a game registered to your account, you can download and play said game on any PC that you can log into steam on.

If you don't beleive me, before you go to bed, uninstall steam etc, then set it off downloading. If in the morning you still need the DVD to play you can come and tell me I am wrong.

maybe Steam can regognize if a CD key is from a retail version or a version bought over steam. so, maybe even if you load the game content via steam using an account which is using a retail CD key, the game might demand a DVD in the drive in order to start.

can anyone confirm what the case is? i dont want to have to have the dvd in drive all the time, but downloading via steam would be quite much of a hassle, and i would gladly not do it if anyone can tell me for sure it wont solve the dvd-stuff

 

[thegroff]

How about making an image from the dvd and mounting with daemon tools to emulate dvd? Enable copy prots in daemon tools. After all, you game is legit so it is completely legal to do it. You bought it and the DVD is yours. All that crap about ilegal thinks is just that, crap. You bought it and you can do whatever you want in order to play. The only thin you cant do is play if you haven't bought it.

Valve seems to be evolving into a militar state were noone can do nothing. Just like city 17. After all you have your rights over your things.

Other solution would be to download from steam and backup it. Click on register a product I already own and download from steam. Didn't they want steam protection and problems? Let's use steam.

 

[Maxi]

Dude, Valve specifiacally designed steam to be able to do that. The whole point of steam is that if you have a game registered to your account, you can download and play said game on any PC that you can log into steam on.

If you don't beleive me, before you go to bed, uninstall steam etc, then set it off downloading. If in the morning you still need the DVD to play you can come and tell me I am wrong.

You will still need the DVD, steam can tell the differences between retail and steam copies.

My friend preloaded HL2, then installed HL2 by inputting his CD key to steam when he bought retail. Steam then wanted him to insert his DVD...

And what I mean by my post was that Daemon tools won't work.

 

[LXS]

How about making an image from the dvd and mounting with daemon tools to emulate dvd? Enable copy prots in daemon tools. After all, you game is legit so it is completely legal to do it. You bought it and the DVD is yours. All that crap about ilegal thinks is just that, crap. You bought it and you can do whatever you want in order to play. The only thin you cant do is play if you haven't bought it.

Valve seems to be evolving into a militar state were noone can do nothing. Just like city 17. After all you have your rights over your things.

Other solution would be to download from steam and backup it. Click on register a product I already own and download from steam. Didn't they want steam protection and problems? Let's use steam.

I've had a little look into that ( ) and it seems you have to burn it with some special tool and then hack into your WinXP registry. Handy. I dont have XP here...

 

[LXS]

Oh, and may i also add, i have no inclination to incite illegal activity with my steam account, especially when the law is in such a grey area. Personally, i'd just like to find a way to use the tools i have available to me to play a game i own...

 

[Darth Valium]

bah, create an image with blindread (or alohol 120%) and mount this with dt or alc 120%. when you know the copy-protection you can select the approbiate one during alc's backup-process, when not look around, there are a lot of forums around which handle such stuff(howto create a working image depending on its cp). i would post a link, but the ones i know are in german, so they wouldnt be this helpfull.


edit: there are sites which are offering so called "fake-images", rather small(they have all the infos about the cd without the cd's content). you can mount them and the cp "thinks" thats the full cd.
rather usefull when you dont want to keep x-gigs of images on your hd, just for cp-purposes.

 

[Gish05]

Do you have $24.99?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-130-027&depa=1

 

[dude]

I had the same problem...

First I preloaded/downloaded the Steam version of HL2 and CS:Source, but HL2 didnt work when it came out so I bought the DVD version in store. After I did this Steam asked for the DVD on every computer I owned for HL2 and CS:Source. I have tried everything...emulation is a complete failure and theres no way possible to "Unregister" your DVD copy of HL2 from your account and use the downloaded version. Because I have multiple computers I run CS on at one time, I will probably look in to CyberCafe level licensing and just get new accounts with all the games.

 

[LXS]

bugger it - i'm stealing a DVD drive from another PC at lunch