(I’m not sure if this belongs in MPSIMS or Cafe Society, so feel free to move it if I’ve misplaced it.)
After reading about all the neat bits the Seasons expansion adds to The Sims 2 in this thread, I finally caved and bought the thing myself at a nearby GameStop between classes. Little did I know that I would have to wait much much longer than just getting out of my last class to play with my new toy.
Upon returning home, I quickly went to install the expansion, eager to futz with gardening, outerwear, and plant sims. Run the first CD. Enter CD Key on the back of the manual. Go make some ramen while it installs. Insert second CD. Make sure ramen hasn’t burned. Come back and to see if it’s done and yay! Looks like it is! Oh, wait a sec… It can’t detect The Sims 2 (the base game) being installed, and so can’t continue the installation?
Hm, maybe that’s related to how whenever I insert the first CD of the base game in, it autoruns the installation wizard… But it runs fine regardless, and I’ve been playing it for months like this without any problems. Well, I backed up my neighborhoods and custom content in anticipation for Seasons anyways, so I might as well uninstall and reinstall the base game; not like I know how else to get the expansion installer to recognise that I have the base game. Doot doot doo.
Huh. That’s odd. The uninstaller didn’t seem to do anything. I’ll try reinstalling anyway. …Now where did I put those CDs beyond the first one?
(About half an hour of looking through boxes of miscellaneous junk later…)
Phew! Found them! Maybe I ought to clean my room more often. Now to start reinstalling. Run the first CD. Enter CD Key on the back of the manu…um, why’s the manual not in the packaging with the CDs? :smack:
(About ANOTHER half hour of looking through crap in my room later…)
OKAY. Now that I have both the CD Key and the installation CDs, I’m finally ready to reinstall the base The Sims 2 and then Seasons, and then I can start having fun. >:( Now, time to reinstall. Run the first CD. Enter the CD Key on the back of the manual. Go make some tea while it installs. Insert second CD. Make sure tea hasn’t burned. Insert third CD. Burn mouth on too hot tea. Insert third CD. Tend to burnt mouth with Ben&Jerry’s American Pie icecream. Insert fo–BRRRRRRRRRT. BRRRRRRRRRRRT. Crap. What now?
“Data error (cyclic redundancy check). Retry? Quit installation?”
Um, retry?
BRRRRRRRRT. BRRRRRRRRRT.
I’ll take that as a “No.”
“Data error (cyclic redundancy check). Retry? Quit installation?”
The CD’s probably has a smudge on it or something. I’ll just clean it off. There. Spotless. Now, retry?
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT.
… Maybe I have to start the installation over? Okay. Quit installation. Run the first CD. Enter CD Key. … Insert second CD. … Insert third CD. … … …
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT.
Okay. Maybe it’s because the uninstall didn’t work. Yeah, that’s probably it. I’ll manually delete the game files already on my computer. Now, to retry the installation. First CD. Second CD. Third CD–
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT.
Arrrgh… Okay, the EA site’s tech support section says if the installation fails to complete, to skip the autorun on the first CD, and instead, copy all the files from the disks onto your hard drive, and run them from there. Okay. First CD. Second CD. Third C–
BRR–
Goddamnit! :mad: So, the third CD is problemmatic. Maybe I didn’t clean it well enough. BRRRRT. No. Maybe I should try reading it with a different CD drive? BRRRRRT. No. Maybe I should try my brother’s computer. FSSSSHT. …I guess that’s also a “No.”
So, long story short, it looks like the third CD of my base The Sims 2 game is damaged somehow, yet it worked fine the first time I used it back in August, and it’s been safe in its packaging box (albeit lost under piles of papers) in my room ever since then. So maybe it uh, atrophied or something. :dubious: And it’s been long over 90 days since I purchased the original game, so I can’t exchange it for working installation CDs. So now, not only can I not install the new expansion pack that I bought, but I can’t even play the original game! I suppose my only hope is to go back to the GameStop I bought the expansion from tomorrow and see if they’ll exchange my CDs for the base game for working ones? But I purchased those back in August from a different GameStop, and I’ve no clue where THAT receipt is.
All I wanted to do was have pretty snow in my Sims 2 neighborhood. Was that too much to ask? >:( /vent