Multimedia CD won't load

I've had this multimedia CD since 1997. It has run on every OS up to my latest, XP. So, naturally I blamed XP. But, then I tried it on several other computers running XP, and it worked on them. Now, there's no doubt about it--the trouble lies with my machine.

My machine specs far exceed the program's requirements; I've got the latest available drivers; my CD drives are operating perfectly; autoplay on or off = same result; DiagDX = no help; I'm at my wits end, I just do not know how to debug this bugger. Anybody have any idea how to proceed?

 

What kind of CD is it, and what sort of things does it contain? Can you see the contents of the CD in XP? And does it install on the computer or just contain some mm presentations that you choose individually from the CD?

Even better, what CD?

 

In the Windows XP area look for "XP driver for RingDisc ", where I give a full explanation of this CD.

When I originally posted that item I thought that it was XP that was the problem. I have since successfully run the disc on 2 other XP computers, so the problem is isolated to my computer.

 

Abraxas:

The CD in question is the RingDisc. See www.ringdisc.com It contains about 15 hours of extremely highly condensed music, text, images, etc. It starts off with about 20 seconds of introductory music, then a screen comes up saying "please wait...now loading ", at which point it aborts, and I get the error message to send to Microsoft.

The disc is 604 megabytes, and contains the following files:
Autorun.inf, Libr.dat, Readme.txt, Ring.dat, Ring.m14, RingDisc.exe, RingM.m14, RingText.dat, Score.txt

The guts of the program are the two m14 files, which my computer can't handle, but which other XP machines have no trouble with.

What diagnostic tools are available to crack this puzzle? What would you do?

 

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I've looked everywhere I could think of to find some information on the format of that CD but came up empty.

Newt's suggestion is worth a try---your sound is probably fine, but you might try setting your screen resolution to match the CD's parameters (800x600, 16-bit) before you run the program.

Try looking at the CD-ROM drive in Device Manager. See if it has the "Enable digital CD audio" box checked. Try it both ways.

Did we already discuss trying this in compatibility mode, or am I thinking of another thread? Does this CD actually install a program on your computer that then runs the presentation (in other words, does one of the usual setup screens show up, you install, and then shortcuts are made to run the program in the future)?

Are you running this from an account with administrative privileges?

If you have the disk space, create a folder and load the entire contents of the CD into it. It may work better from the hard drive than from the CD (or not at all).

Is there anything that differs from your computer and those that the CD works on? This would be hard to determine, I know. But there is clearly some difference and if we knew that, we'd have the problem delineated.

 

"you might try setting your screen resolution to match the CD's parameters (800x600, 16-bit) before you run the program. "

Tried that--no help

"Try looking at the CD-ROM drive in Device Manager. See if it has the "Enable digital CD audio" box checked. Try it both ways. "

Tried that--no help

"Did we already discuss trying this in compatibility mode, or am I thinking of another thread?"

Tried every compatibility option available--no help

" Does this CD actually install a program on your computer that then runs the presentation (in other words, does one of the usual setup screens show up, you install, and then shortcuts are made to run the program in the future)? "

Nothing is installed on the hard drive. After a brief introductory bit of music, it appears to want to trigger the running of its main program. And, that's where it aborts.

Are you running this from an account with administrative privileges?

No.

"If you have the disk space, create a folder and load the entire contents of the CD into it. It may work better from the hard drive than from the CD (or not at all). "

Tried that--no help

"Is there anything that differs from your computer and those that the CD works on? This would be hard to determine, I know. But there is clearly some difference and if we knew that, we'd have the problem delineated. "

No real way to know. But, as I said, this is a 1997 program designed to run on W95 and NT4. I've seen it run on W98, ME, W2k, and XP. I've got sufficent speed, P3, 700 mhz, 256 mb mem.

I'm really stuck for an answer, and the publisher of the program is out of business, so I've got no one to turn to but here. Incidentally, this is not a cheap program. I think it cost me about $80, six years ago.

 

Just a bit curious about the account part. If you are not running from an Admin account, what group do you belong to? And why not from an Admin account?

If it installs nothing on the hard drive, am I correct in assuming that you must then start the program by inserting the CD and having it autostart? If so, can you open the autorun.inf file in Notepad and post its contents here?

What executables do you see on the disk?

What does Event Viewer say about these occurrences (the failure to proceed after starting)?

 

Abraxas:

Made a mistake about the account part. Yes, I am the account administrator.

Autorun.inf has two lines:
OPEN=RINGDISC.EXE
ICON=RINGDISC.EXE

The only executable is RingDisc.exe

Event viewer refers to RingDisc.exe as Fault Address 0x00001364

 

Abraxas:

An amazing thing happened. When I went into autorun.inf I highlighted and copied the two lines
OPEN=RINGDISC.EXE
ICON=RINGDISC.EXE

Just as I was about to paste them over here, the program started to run completely and normally. I've tried to duplicate what I did, but I can't get it to respond. If I could, I'd consider it a victory, and drop this whole inquiry.

What do you make of this?

 

Abraxas:

I've just successfully started up and run my RingDisc 3 times. !!!

The things I did were 1. Lower the sound volume of the cd drive in device manager from maximum to 50%, and 2. Run the program from My Computer by right clicking on its icon, then right clicking on autoplay.

These actions may have absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I'm not going to argue with success. Sorry to have bothered you guys for so long.

 

This is pretty much what I was aiming for. If the program didn't want to start at the beginning, maybe there was a way to start it after the beginning .

Enjoy your music and just don't ask yourself, "Why? ".