Hello, I recently bought Oblivion and I guess my DVD drive isnt able to spin it or read it or some such nonsense. I have an HL-ST-DT DVD ROM GDR 8161B. I havent been able to figure out who manufactures it for some reason. Ive been to various forums trying to find out why it isnt working and so far all Ive gotten was something about firmware. Im not very advanced when it comes to computers, so if anyone has any advice on how to get it to work, I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

Download the free Everest programme from HERE.

When you run the programme. Click on the storage icon in the righthand pane, then the optical drives icon.

Maybe Everest will be able to identify your drive and give you a link to the drives manufacturers.

Regards Howard

I figured out that it is made by Hitachi-LG. I went to the link provided on the Everest page, and there was no firmware for this model on their site. Does anyone know of any other places that may have it?

If your computer is an oem build, such as Dell/Hp/Compaq etc. you might be able to get a frimware update from your computer manufacturers website.

Otherwise, look HERE for possible links.

Regards Howard

I found a firmware for HP/Compaq computers, #0046. I ran the program, it flashed up, and then I rebooted my computer. Still no luck.

That`s a shame.

If you are running any virtual cd drives, such as Daemon tools, or Alcohol120% creates. This could possibly affect the install of Oblivion.

Is it possible that your Oblivion disk is faulty? Try changing the disk from wherever you bought it.

Regards Howard

Id have thought my disc was faulty, but Ive heard of others having this issue and especially on the Hl-DT-ST GDR 8161B so Im not so sure its the disc's fault. Also. Ive never bought a faulty game disc, but is it fairly common?

Faulty disks do sometimes slip through. Only way to check that out, is to try another disk.

If it turns out to be a compatibility issue with your drive, then the only thing you can do is change the drive.

I hope for your sake, it`s just a faulty disk.

Regards Howard

Do you have any other games installed that may have StarForce copy protection?

If so, you may wish to uninstall them as well as Starforce and give this a shot.

Firmwares here: http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=775

I'm not sure if the links work though.

I haven't noticed any kind of copy protection in the game, it only checks if the DVD is in the drive.

I am having a similar problem.

The dvd drive only reads about half of the files on the dvd, so I can neither run the exe nor copy all of the files off to do that.

I have the newest drivers that I can find for my drive and every other dvd/cd that I have works just fine.

Is there something else that I can do? I would love to play the game, but it just doesnt work! (I even tried downloading a copy of it offline, after burning that had the same issue)

I had to borrow a 16x USB dvd drive just to install the game after four days of trying to find another way to get it to load.

on one machine it gave CRC errors while trying to install, and on my laptop it refused to even acknowledge the disc was in the drive, but the USB DVD drive loaded it fine.

Thanks for all the help, I got the firmwares updated... and then said screw it and bought a new player, the game works now.