Battlefield 2142 - Optical Drive Recognition Issue

[steveleepete]

So I have been playing BF2142 since November of 2007 on the Mac (Mac version, not BootCamp) and it has worked great. In March, I purchased the new MacPro and BF2142 worked great for the first couple of months. In May, it suddenly stopped recognizing the game DVD in the disc drive. I've had problems in the past and the solution was always an uninstall/reinstall/patch and I was usually good to go. That didn't do anything. I have spent around 20 hours on the phone with an Apple Expert over the last 4 months and none of their little tricks seemed to make a dent so I ended up taking it into the Apple Store so they could run an ASD (Apple Software Diagnostics) test, which came up with no problems.

So as a last resort, one of the Apple geniuses told me to try burning a disc image of the game and running that instead of having the game in the drive. Sounded brilliant, used Toast Titanium and made a disc image of the game. Tried to launch after an uninstall/reinstall/patch and it comes up with the same gay ass message..."Please ensure Battlefield 2142 Installer Disc is in the drive."

Now I am completely stuck and really pissed cuz my new MacPro won't even recognize BF2142. Just for some extra info, the game & same disc work perfectly in my MacBook Pro, and I even tried using my brother's copy of BF2142 in the MacPro to see if it was a computer/disc combination of a problem. If ANYONE has had this extremely rare problem and knows WTF to do...I am in need of your help.

SPECS:
2009 MacPro
Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2.93 GHz
6GB RAM
10.6 Snow Leopard
ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card

 

[Dragonforce]

easy.

Thrash this piece of junk "SuperDrive" and get a new optical disc drive, maybe
a blu-ray burner or some other SATA drive. New drives with LabelFlash or
LightScribe cost like $20.

First thing I did when I got my early 09 Mac Pro was installing 2 brand new
LabelFlash drives and throwing the original SuperDrive out of the window.

 

[pprior]

You aren't running parallels are you? that can "lock out" the cd rom so that 2142 wont' see it.

Same thing for certain ripping software, I have to quit it or the cider wrapper 2142 runs in won't work.

Just a couple thoughts. I keep my 2142 disk in the lower of my 2 CD rom drives and it works fine except in those circumstances but I've never been able to get around having it physically in the drive (which is annoying).

 

[steveleepete]

Thrash this piece of junk "SuperDrive" and get a new optical disc drive, maybe
a blu-ray burner or some other SATA drive. New drives with LabelFlash or
LightScribe cost like $20.

First thing I did when I got my early 09 Mac Pro was installing 2 brand new
LabelFlash drives and throwing the original SuperDrive out of the window.

after doing some research, i can only find LabelFlash drives that work with Windows...we're obviously talking about a Mac here. are you using LabelFlash drives with a mac and what was the reason to you trashing the 'junky' superdrives asap?

You aren't running parallels are you? that can "lock out" the cd rom so that 2142 wont' see it.

Same thing for certain ripping software, I have to quit it or the cider wrapper 2142 runs in won't work.

Just a couple thoughts. I keep my 2142 disk in the lower of my 2 CD rom drives and it works fine except in those circumstances but I've never been able to get around having it physically in the drive (which is annoying).

no i am not running parallels at anytime...i only use bootcamp which to my knowledge has no conflicting problems with the drives. what do you mean by 'i've never been able to get around having it physically in the drive'? meaning you are annoyed at the fact that we have to play the game with the disc in the drive or that you dont have to have the game in the drive when you do play it?

 

[Dragonforce]

Every SATA drive works with a Mac, see my signature for the machine I own.
The built in stock so-called "Superdrive" is utter ****, I got disk I/O, tracking and sensing errors while burning and reading discs, so I just got two of these:

http://www.sony-optiarc.eu/en/products/dvddrivesdesktoppcs/ad7203s.html

They work fine, are reaaaaaally quiet, burn LabelFlash discs in amazing quality and no need for drivers at all. Just plug them in and you're ready to go.

 

[steveleepete]

Awesome. Wow your setup is very similar to mine (except I have utter *** SuperDrives haha) Those look perfect...this may sound like a dumb question but where is the best place to buy a couple of those?

 

[Dragonforce]

I have no idea where you live, but try your local electronics store, ebay or Amazon. Any other SATA drive will work too

 

[steveleepete]

hey so i bought a couple LG SATA 22x drives and after i installed them i realized the f***ing trays are too tall and wont fit through the MacPro door when ejected. my goal is to just order the one you got but i cant find it anywhere. i live in southern california and the only place i found the drives you posted a link to was amazon.uk so i am out of luck there. i dont understand why i have had so much trouble trying to locate the stupid drive i need.

 

[pprior]

You just have to pop the fronts off the trays. Easy fix.

 

[TheShinyMac]

Have you thought that it is your cd, I mean cds dont last forever.

 

[steveleepete]

You just have to pop the fronts off the trays. Easy fix.

Well I manually put the battlefield disc into the drive and then reinstalled the game to see if the new LG drive made a difference...nope. So my next move would have been to pop the drove off the tray but it doesn't seem like a good idea now that I realized the drive doesn't help my situation.

Have you thought that it is your cd, I mean cds dont last forever.

I tried using my brother copy of the game which is in great condition and it did not make a difference so I don't think that is the problem. Any more ideas? I'm thinking I should just try buying a different SATA drive to see if that helps.