09/17/2002 Archived Entry: "Pain & Retribution"
Downloaded Battlefield 1942. Yes, I know, piracy, but I'm not going to spend money on a game that I'm unsure of. The download took most of last night.
How I spent nearly two hours today:
Got home from work, excited about playing Battlefield 1942. Hunt for blank CDs on which to burn bin/cue files. Out of CDs.
Urge to kill: Low
Go to store. Purchase 5-pack, because EB is close and that's all EB has and I'm in a hurry. Return home, pop CD-R in brand new TDK 40x/12x/48x and fire off Fireburner. Fireburner initially seems to be acting normally, but yacks at about 80% with some weird-ass error that I didn't bother to write down.
Coaster count: 1
Urge to kill: Low, but rising
Quit Fireburner and try Easy CD Creator, which I quickly discover doesn't know what bin/cue files are. Try to install Nero Burning ROM, version $OLDER_THAN_DIRT. Installation is a miserable failure. Restart computer like nine times to rid me of the evilness. Download and install Nero 5.5.9.9, which is like new or something.
Nero likes bin/cues, and happily begins making a CD for me. I browse the web for a bit and listen to the jet engine-like noises that the CD burner makes, when suddenly everything goes still. Nero is locked up hard, and not even task manager will kill it. In fact, while Internet Explorer remains responsive, nothing else seems to work. I give it twenty minutes, then reboot the computer.
Coaster count: 2
Urge to kill: Moderate
I decide that I might have a problem, so I visit TDK's web site and realize that my drive's firmware is hopelessly out of date. Easy enough to fix. I download the new binary and flash the firmware, and two minutes later I'm back in Nero. This time, I give the first CD a miss and try instead to burn the game's second CD, which comes off like a champ. No lockups, no worries. I pop the CD into my Kenwood 72x and it reads the disc fine. The 72x is touchy as hell, and is a good test of whether the CD is good or not--if that flaky drive can read it, ANYTHING can read it.
Figuring I have the problem licked, I try burning disc 1 again. Nero starts off A-OK, but around 85% it begins spinning the drive up, then down, up, then down, up, then down over and over again. The CD takes nearly ten minutes to finish, but it does eventually finish and reports no errors. I leave the disc where it is and, at about 1.25 hours after I started this crazy endeavour, I start installing the game.
Which stops, at 49%, with an error about not being able to find a file or some shit like that. My head aches in frustration. I retry the installation, and it also craps out at 49%. Angry, I try the disc in my 72x, and the whole computer locks up as the drive ties up the bus and takes over the computer, making everything wait while it tries to read the disc.
Coaster count: 3
Urge to kill: Dangerously high
Now spitting with anger and down to my last CD-R, I yank the power cord out of the computer, remove the 40x, and hook back up my old 8x burner. After getting Windows back up, the 8x chugs like a champ and produces disc 1 in less than eight minutes. The disc is beautifully readable and installs without issue.
After the game is installed, I turn the PC off and replace the 40x. However, once the PC is back on, I try to open the 40x's tray and I am greeted with nothing more than a tiny whine and the barest of tray movements. Like a jilted woman, the burner now refuses to open its tray, even a little bit. The paperclip trick gets it open easily enough, but the motor itself refuses to make the tray go in and out.
Urge to kill: Overwhelming
Shaking with anticipation and anger, I finally fire up the game. I play it for about fifteen minutes, decide it sucks, and uninstall it.
The moral of this tale? Electronics Boutique and Babbage's and Software Etc. all take returns on opened merchandise. Don't have a heart attack trying to make warez work--just buy your games there and if they suck, take 'em back.
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