Renaissance 2K wrote on 2024-09-13, 15:54:

Hi, everyone. […]
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Hi, everyone.

Lately, a few of the programs I've been trying to install on my Windows 98/XP machine have failed with the same error message: Please insert the disc: 1. The installation gets nearly to the completion point, and then a Windows dialog appears at the top of the screen with the titular error message and an option to proceed or cancel. I can also hear the drive spin down shortly afterwards. If I opt to proceed, the dialog disappears for a moment only to reappear. If I opt to cancel, the installation UI shows a "Reverting changes" messages and deletes everything it spent the past five minutes installing.

I've seen this happen with multiple versions of the Windows XP Plus! installation, with the Unreal Tournament 2004 Editor's Choice mods disc, and at least one other time for a third piece of software, though I don't remember which.

Here's what workarounds I've tried:

• Re-burning to a new disc
• Changing the drive letter
• Swapping the DVD drive for a working CD drive
• Copying the disc contents to a hard drive, and installing from there
• Installing on Windows 98 (in the cases where the installer allowed it... I obviously couldn't do this with Plus!)

Here are some solutions I've thought about but haven't tried:

• Installing from a drive without burn capability
• Ejecting and re-inserting the disc (just thought of this one...)

My guess is that it's either some sort of on-disc copy protection, or it's an issue with the installer. Using original discs should have solved the former, and if it was an installer issue, wouldn't this have been widespread when this hardware/software was modern?

Has anyone run into this before when running some old software/games? Were you ever able to find a workaround for it?

Thanks.

i've had a similar problem but not the same error when installing xp the install would stop at some point as it was unable to read a file from the cd, sometimes it would skip the error but i'd find important files missing from my installation, making installing software/games impossible, i tried different discs tho in my case it turned out to be a bad dvd drive, if you've switched to an older cd drive it could also be bad, i've found drives can stop reading correctly and fail even if they've been sat on a shelf for a while and were working previously,

since its telling you to insert disc it sounds like you've got a connection error that could be a dodgy ide cable, plugging and unplugging can often damage them.

if its a sata cable, that could also be dodgy or not properly seated, if it moves slightly it could cause a connection error, i have this with hard drives and older cables so usually use the cables with clips,

the other issue could be a dodgy PSU or power connector, i've had hdd's power down and power up continuously while copying files then corrupt because of a dodgy molex/sata power connector, so try a different connector, it could also be that your PSU is failing, the power could be fluctuating causing your drive to disconnect, i had this recently with one of my pc's the Os's was on ssd which was fine, but the 3.5" hdd with my games on would keep disconnecting while gaming and not show up in "This PC/My Computer", in the end i bought a new PSU, and haven't had the problem since.

Thanks for your reply.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-09-13, 17:38:

i've had a similar problem but not the same error when installing xp the install would stop at some point as it was unable to re […]
Show full quote

i've had a similar problem but not the same error when installing xp the install would stop at some point as it was unable to read a file from the cd, sometimes it would skip the error but i'd find important files missing from my installation, making installing software/games impossible, i tried different discs tho in my case it turned out to be a bad dvd drive, if you've switched to an older cd drive it could also be bad, i've found drives can stop reading correctly and fail even if they've been sat on a shelf for a while and were working previously,

since its telling you to insert disc it sounds like you've got a connection error that could be a dodgy ide cable, plugging and unplugging can often damage them.

if its a sata cable, that could also be dodgy or not properly seated, if it moves slightly it could cause a connection error, i have this with hard drives and older cables so usually use the cables with clips,

the other issue could be a dodgy PSU or power connector, i've had hdd's power down and power up continuously while copying files then corrupt because of a dodgy molex/sata power connector, so try a different connector, it could also be that your PSU is failing, the power could be fluctuating causing your drive to disconnect, i had this recently with one of my pc's the Os's was on ssd which was fine, but the 3.5" hdd with my games on would keep disconnecting while gaming and not show up in "This PC/My Computer", in the end i bought a new PSU, and haven't had the problem since.

I totally get that this could be the result of old parts, general wear, dodgy connections, etc. What's really odd about all this is that 98% of my installations go off without a hitch, including a 7-disc full installation of The X-Files Game. It's just very specific software that fails, fails 100% of the time, and fails at the very end of the installation process.

You make a good point about the power supply, and maybe that's worth looking into. The power supply I have is era appropriate, so it's approaching 30 years since manufacture and might be long in the tooth. I have a more modern power supply with fewer molex connectors that I could try running for a while in case that helps.

I don't think it's an issue with connection, though, as it happened with both an internal IDE drive connected to an IDE motherboard as well as a USB 2.0 drive. It also happened after copying the disc contents to a hard drive first. As a bonus, the IDE drive is actually new old stock, and while it's totally possible it could have self-mutilated in its box during its hibernation, it's fortunately less likely.

Copy \i386 to hdd and then install from i386\setup

Renaissance 2K wrote on 2024-09-13, 22:05:

Thanks for your reply. […]
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Thanks for your reply.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-09-13, 17:38:

i've had a similar problem but not the same error when installing xp the install would stop at some point as it was unable to re […]
Show full quote

i've had a similar problem but not the same error when installing xp the install would stop at some point as it was unable to read a file from the cd, sometimes it would skip the error but i'd find important files missing from my installation, making installing software/games impossible, i tried different discs tho in my case it turned out to be a bad dvd drive, if you've switched to an older cd drive it could also be bad, i've found drives can stop reading correctly and fail even if they've been sat on a shelf for a while and were working previously,

since its telling you to insert disc it sounds like you've got a connection error that could be a dodgy ide cable, plugging and unplugging can often damage them.

if its a sata cable, that could also be dodgy or not properly seated, if it moves slightly it could cause a connection error, i have this with hard drives and older cables so usually use the cables with clips,

the other issue could be a dodgy PSU or power connector, i've had hdd's power down and power up continuously while copying files then corrupt because of a dodgy molex/sata power connector, so try a different connector, it could also be that your PSU is failing, the power could be fluctuating causing your drive to disconnect, i had this recently with one of my pc's the Os's was on ssd which was fine, but the 3.5" hdd with my games on would keep disconnecting while gaming and not show up in "This PC/My Computer", in the end i bought a new PSU, and haven't had the problem since.

I totally get that this could be the result of old parts, general wear, dodgy connections, etc. What's really odd about all this is that 98% of my installations go off without a hitch, including a 7-disc full installation of The X-Files Game. It's just very specific software that fails, fails 100% of the time, and fails at the very end of the installation process.

You make a good point about the power supply, and maybe that's worth looking into. The power supply I have is era appropriate, so it's approaching 30 years since manufacture and might be long in the tooth. I have a more modern power supply with fewer molex connectors that I could try running for a while in case that helps.

I don't think it's an issue with connection, though, as it happened with both an internal IDE drive connected to an IDE motherboard as well as a USB 2.0 drive. It also happened after copying the disc contents to a hard drive first. As a bonus, the IDE drive is actually new old stock, and while it's totally possible it could have self-mutilated in its box during its hibernation, it's fortunately less likely.

if your PSU is 30years old it could have problems, the oldest i've got is nearly 20, if you're having problems copying to your main hdd then that could be your problem even if its new old stock, run it through HDTune pro to check for any errors, i mentioned in a post the other day about having the same problem copying files to and from a hdd, it turned out the hdd had many bad block/sectors, in the pic below it should look all green, the hdd i had problems with was a checkerboard of red and green squares right across the drive.

first go to the error tab, uncheck quick scan and run it, then check the health tab, this will tell you if theres any other problems, you can see in the pic mine has a load of connection errors and 2 unstable sectors.

It's been a few weeks, but to follow up on this, this error was an unfortunate side effect of using an IDE-to-CF adapter for a Windows XP install.

Without spinning a yarn, I'm using a SD-to-IDE adapter in an older retro PC that I just picked up. I was really pleased with the results, so I tried installing Windows XP with it and running the same installation programs. No errors.

I copied my Windows XP CF image to a new SD card, booted, ran the problematic installs, and re-imaged back to my CF to be back where I started.

There were some versions of XP that did come as a 2 disc set (MCE and TPC).
What version of XP are you trying to install and what is the key (retail, VLK etc)?