I must be overlooking something

[Aabraxan]

First, my disclaimer: I bought Civ III Complete. The copy I have was not hacked, cracked, pirated, pilfered, loaned, lifted, begged, borrowed, stolen, or otherwise ill-gotten. I bought it, plain and simple.

That said, it played just fine the first two or three games. After that, I got a "CD not found. Please insert Civ III CD" message. As you might guess, the CD was in the drive.

I eventually got the game to run, so I don't think this problem is insurmountable, but I looked in the CIV III FAQ and ran some searches on here to look for fixes to this. But I can't seem to find a solution that does not involve either (a) repeated reinstalls; or (b) risking turning my home computer into a paperweight by tampering with files way beyond my technical skills.

I put the disclaimer in at the top because I know many of the discussions that begin with this question end with "where can I find a no-cd crack," followed by postings that include "that's piracy & is illegal," & "posting that will get you banned." However, if there's a legal solution to this problem somewhere on Apolyton, a pointer to the right thread(s) would me much appreciated.

[Kloreep]

Unless I'm missing something, it would appear to me your disc is irreperably altered beyond recognition of Civ3's copy protection. No solution to be had here, I'm afraid. Since you own a legal copy, you could try contacting Atari tech support; I believe they have the authority to give you an official no-CD patch if you can prove to their satisfaction that you have a legitimate copy. If that doesn't work, you could always pursue the poly-verboten solution in good conscience, but as you say you won't be able to get advice on that here...

[Aabraxan]

It's a brand new disk, and I've looked all over the net for a solution. It looks like this problem is a common one and has just never been solved by legal means. I have emailed Atari, but have yet to receive a response. As I said, I can get the game to run, but it's a headache. Thanks for the information, though.