Problem running Mass Effect 2 discs (read for more info)

I am an owner of Mass Effect 2 for more than 3 years now and the game's discs have barely any scratches, if at all.

I installed Mass Effect 2 on my computer (which is a laptop) about a year ago and it installed and worked fine, played the game and completed it with no issues. I uninstalled it afterwards.

Recently I felt like playing it all over again and decided to install it again. The problem is, is that my computer doesn't accept the discs at all. Let me assure you that my optical drive is almost-new, and I only used it a handful of times. Also, every other of my games on disc (Mass Effect 3, Need For Speed MW, Battlefield BC2 etc) work perfectly and install/play perfectly. Same thing applies for music CDs and video DVDs. So, nothing wrong with the drive (as far as I know). I tried both of the ME2 discs on another computer and they run perfectly and are ready for installation, but they don't work at all on my computer.

If it helps, my copy of Mass Effect 2 is one of the earlier ones that don't require Origin (I'm not sure if later rereleases of the game required that, but since ME3 does I thought I'd let you guys know).

Could it be that one of the updates Microsoft released throughout the year blocks the game? I really don't know.

Specs:

OS: Windows 8.1 64bit (Update)

CPU: Intel Core i3 3120M

GPU: Nvidia 710M

RAM: 4GB

I'd really appreciate some help here, thank you in advance.

EA_David
11 years ago
Hmm, it's hard to tell. Can your computer see the discs at all, or do they just show up as blank? If they're detected but the install fails, you might want to try running ccleaner: http://help.ea.com/sg/article/how-to-use-ccleaner-to-fix-pc-issues/

If your internet is good enough to download the whole game, you can contact support to have the game added to your Origin account.

6 Replies

EA_David
Community Admin
11 years ago
Hmm, it's hard to tell. Can your computer see the discs at all, or do they just show up as blank? If they're detected but the install fails, you might want to try running ccleaner: http://help.ea.com/sg/article/how-to-use-ccleaner-to-fix-pc-issues/

If your internet is good enough to download the whole game, you can contact support to have the game added to your Origin account.
Anonymous
11 years ago
I'm not quite sure... Despite being clean, I decided to use a little bit of alcohol to clean both of the discs and wipe them afterwards. Thanks to that, Disc 2 actually works flawlessly, but Disc 1 has the same problem.
As far as CCleaner goes, I keep my computer clean with CCleaner and Glary Utilities every day and I defrag my HDD regularly, so I doubt that is the issue.
I don't want to become too much of a hassle so no worries. I'm actually going to pick up the Mass Effect Trilogy in retail (which is pretty cheap actually, that's awesome) and most probably those copies will work (given that they're rereleased with Origin).
Thank you very much once again for trying to help me out with this.
Fred_vdp
Hero+
11 years ago
Mass Effect 2 has on-disc copy protection that makes it difficult for some DVD drives to read the disc at all. I have had the same problem on all three PCs I played the game on. I also had the same problem with Dragon Age: Origins.

It's also seemingly random. Sometimes the discs can be read, at other times they cannot. For this reason, I have now downloaded and installed the games through the Origin client.

(Edit: Unmarked my post as solution and gave it back to David's post, since he mentioned the use of Origin first.)
Anonymous
11 years ago
I figured as much. So... I'm assuming there's no way to bypass the protection so I can actually install the game. A quick google search brings up SecuROM.
It's worth noting that I also used StarForce & SecuROM removal tools to remove both of the protections from my system. I still have no idea though...
The last solution would be formatting my computer but I'm not sure about that yet.
I forgot to mention that my computer originally ran on Windows 8, but after several annoying messages regarding 8.1, I decided to update. If 8.1 has nothing to do with it then I'm almost sure it's the copy-protection, like Fred suggested.
EDIT: Just tried 2 DVD Movies. The first one wouldn't boot up at all, second one however booted up flawlessly. Both discs are in almost-new condition. So I'm leaning towards what Fred said, regarding ME2.
I'm still trying to figure out how the heck does Disc 2 work and Disc 1 doesn't, though. Well, one extra reason to get that gorgeous Trilogy (which I hope doesn't give me any problems).
Fred_vdp
Hero+
11 years ago
AlexGR313 wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out how the heck does Disc 2 work and Disc 1 doesn't, though. Well, one extra reason to get that gorgeous Trilogy (which I hope doesn't give me any problems).

As far as I'm aware, the content of the Trilogy edition is exactly the same as the individual copies, with the exception of ME1 which has more on-disc content. For this reason, I think the Trilogy edition disc may cause the exact same issue.
Anonymous
11 years ago
I'm currently looking into that myself. According to a GameFAQs thread, Origin is not avoidable and is required for the installation of all 3 games in the Trilogy (which is fine by me). I'll see what I can do though, maybe even change my optical drive completely.
Big thank you for the support, really really appreciate it!