Installation problem

[Valikar]

Well here is my problem I have Baldur's Gate 2 and had played it, but unfortanate to me my computer crashed and I had to get a new hard drive. Also, when I tried to reinstall the game I was putting the disks in as normal intill it asked for a disk 5, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't remember a disk 5 when I got the game. Now I was wondering if I could get some help?

[Sabre]

Disc 5 is actually Disc 1. I had this problem when I first try to install the game. Try putting Disc 1 in and if that doesn't work, cancel it and try installation again latter.

[Yshania]

See if this helps...turning off the DMA until install was completed helped me - but my problem was slightly different to yours.

If you are having problems getting BG2 to install or BG2 asking for a CD5, you may want to try some of the following suggestions.

"When changing CDs during the installation, let the drive spin-up and then stop. Then click OK and see if the installer recognizes the disc change. Do this for all the CDs that are requested.

Try checking for a firmware/BIOS update for your CD or DVD drive. We have had several reports of sucessfull installs of BG2 once a firmware update was applied. You will have to check with your CD/DVD drive manufacturer for this kind of update.

If you have multiple CD/DVD drives, only install from one and do not try to use all of your drives. For some reason, this is confusing InstallShield.

If you cannot do any install without getting some sort of error or crash and you have about 5 Gig of free hard drive space, you can try to copy all 4 CDs to your hard drive, then run the install from there. Please note, you must copy all 4 CDs to the same directory for the install to run. If you get prompted for the next CD, then you have not copied the files over properly, or you have missed some.

Try turning off DMA for your CD/DVD drive. For some people, this has allowed them to install. You can find this checkbox by going to your Control Panel, then to System, then to the Device Manager tab. Find your CD/DVD drive and bring up its Properties, then go to the Settings tab.

Try turning off your CD/DVD read-ahead. For some people, this has allowed them to install. You can find this slider by going to your Control Panel, then to System, then to the Performance tab. Down in the Advanced Settings frame, press the File System... button and move the slider all the way to the left. You may need to restart for this setting to take effect. "

Good luck!

[Valikar]

Thanks for the help but I have one more question. What is a DMA?(I don't know very much about computers)

[Yshania]

"Direct memory access (DMA) channels are system pathways used by many devices to transfer information directly to and from memory. DMA channels are not nearly as "famous" as IRQs as system resources go. This is mostly for a good reason: there are fewer of them and they are used by many fewer devices, and hence they usually cause fewer problems with system setup. However, conflicts on DMA channels can cause very strange system problems and can be very difficult to diagnose. DMAs are used most commonly today by floppy disk drives, tape drives and sound cards."

Check out this link if you want more information

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/res/dma

If you remove the DMA on your CDRom drive and install - it will take longer but will cause fewer installation problems, especially if you have a fast CD drive.

I think you should try the first tip though regarding waiting for the CD drive to recognise the disk is in there before clicking OK.

[dimon37]

I had the same problem. The way I solved it (I had A LOT of free disc space) is like this:
I copied all CDs on my hard drive into some directory and then ran the setup from there. I was never asked for any CDs and I was going to do full install anyway, so that suited me just fine.

[Yshania]

@Dimon

That is another way to avoid installation problems - but it does take a bit of time for all the disks to copy over before you install doesn't it?