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Help needed please
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Posted by: Dolphonic
This is unfortunately going to be a slightly long message because I want to be sure I explain everything clearly to avoid confusion and common answers to common problems...
Basically, in a nutshell, I've reinstalled my system from scratch and tried installing Diablo II plus the LoD expansion but can't get it working once it upgrades to v1.09d. The CD rom drive starts hammering the disc and continually flashes pausing slightly for half a second every 6-7 seconds or so. The system severly slows down, almost to the point of freezing and I need to reset to get control back of the system (game.exe stops responding).
There are many things to try which could possibly fix this - I've tried everything I can think of....I install Diablo II without a problem and can play it, then I can upgrade to LoD v1.07 and that works without error too - no "Insert Expansion CD" errors at all...if I then go on battle.net, the v.1.09d patch downloads, applies and relaunches Diablo automatically - that's when it freezes. So I tried downloading the patch manually from the Blizzard site and applying it. Same thing. I tried applying all the patches seperately one by one and even 1.10 but the problem is still there. I am only able to play SP v1.07. I don't understand how it can be a hardware problem because before I was using Windows 98 First Edition and everything worked fine. I installed Diablo way back in 2000 and applied patches 1.04 and 1.06b before buying LoD and upgrading to 1.07. Then I started to go on battle.net and took the updates one at a time all the way through the years up to 1.10. Never with any problem. About 6 months ago I upgraded my internet connection to ADSL. Again, no problem running v1.09 and then 1.10. I have a mitsumi cr4801-te and it's using the Microsoft driver I had on my old Windows system from 23-4-99. The firmware is the latest, 2.03 and that's in the BIOS and the same as before so I don't see how that can affect the game as it hasn't changed. The only major thing different from before is that I have added a network card and can now see another machine I have in the house. I installed the network card when I was using W98 First Edition and that caused problems with my ADSL interent connection so I was forced to reinstall from scratch. Now my internet connection and network are running fine - the main reason it wasn't working before was most likely because of a fragged OS - I originally installed W98 on my machine back in 1998. I am running a crappy PII 233 with a 3dfx Voodoo2 card and 256 meg of RAM. Nothing fancy and as I said, all working with Diablo II before. The video card drivers are the latest and Diablo detects them no problem. As I said, v1.07 SP works fine. The jump to 1.09d causes the problem and I don't know what else to do. I read everything on the Blizzard support website - I made the first and last cd drive letter the same. I disabled autoinsert and and the sync setting for the CD rom. I uninstalled KaZaa as that has been know to cause problems with Diablo (I was using it on my old system before though anyway and had no problems). I copied the music file onto the PC so it doesn't need to load from the disc. I've tried cleaning the disc (doesn't seem like a search problem as v1.07 wouldn't work). I've also tried using the game.exe updated file on the Blizzard patch FTP dir.
Other notes: I install to my D: drive and my CD rom is a quad speed burner. These shouldn't be a problem because they worked fine with Windows 98 First Edition and remember: I can actually play v1.07. If the drive was too slow or there are driver problems I don't think 1.07 would work. I can't understand what it could be as there is no error message - just a hammering of the disc in the drive. It's not a virus as I use Norton and am totally up to date. My drives aren't defragmented because I cleaned and scanned them before installing. My Diablo CDs are legit and original with their own codes. I don't use third party software and detest cheats and hacks and have never used them - not even out of curiosity. I've got v1.10 chars I want to keep and v1.09 chars that expire mid-September!
I'm desperate and this close to calling up Blizzard in the states. The only thing I can think of trying is installing from the CD rom drive on the other computer across the network to see if that works better - but it would be a real pain in the butt if I had to have both machines on just to play Diablo.
If anyone has had a similar problem or if you have any other ideas could you please post your suggestions as I would appreciate it - thanks a lot and sorry for the long post.
Posted by: Null Actor
IIRC, Blizzard changed some of the copy protection code in 1.09, and unfrotunately it broke compatibility with some cdroms. You said you have another machine, is it possible for you to swap cdroms as a test? Might be worth trying.
Posted by: Dolphonic
That's a strong possibilty even though I've been playing 1.10 with this CD rom drive for the past month or so with Windows 98 first edition - same driver and everything....don't know why Win98SE makes a difference or Diablo 1.09 - I reinstalled again and wanted to verify which patch actually causes the problem - 1.07 works, 1.08 works but 1.09 didn't. Jumping straight to 1.09d from 1.07 causes the problem too...so you're right - something in 1.09 with Win98SE is giving me grief....I'm going to drive another CD rom drive tonight and see if that makes a difference....(even though in theory it should work like before!)
Thanks for you answer
Posted by: Dolphonic
Ok - I've fixed the problem by buying another CD rom drive - which is quite insane considering LoD v1.07 works without problem....a new CD rom drive just to play version 1.09? That's a bit extreme...
At least I've saved my characters.
Thanks to everyone who replied and/or read my post.
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