Can you try installing the game on a different computer? Depending on the size and depth of the scratch on the CD, a different optical drive may be better at reading it or better able to handle the error correction. If it can be installed on your desktop, then you can patch it and copy it to your laptop (over a network, or zip and burn to DVD; if you zip it first you can extract it to the laptop to install, and don't have to worry about the files being marked as read-only, if you use a DVD-R rather than DVD-RW).
There are also scratch repairing solutions or kits you can get, though I don't have any experience with them.
Do you have the English (UK / North American) version of the game? Do you know if it was the original release (v1.1) or an updated version?
There are a couple programs that could be used to repair files from a damaged CD, based on information from a known good copy. If you have the original English release, then the only difference would be the damaged section, and that should require fairly little info to repair. If you have an updated version or different localization, there would be more changes than just the damaged section.
Since the installation almost completes, it may also be possible to just replace all the files that get copied after the error, assuming the error doesn't happen at the end of a huge file, or something (see below).
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The install program should report any problems, such as CRC errors, during install. However, if it fails to do so, or a file becomes corrupt after installation, the integrity of the files can still be verified using a program such as
FileCheck (194KB
download) or
DVDsig (10KB, included with the md5 files below).
FileCheck is a small freeware program (no install required) to calculate the CRC-32 values (the cyclic redundancy check used in zip files) of a number of files. It can also compare a previously calculated CRC file with a set of files/folders.
DVDsig is a very small freeware program (also no install required) to calculate or verify the MD5 values (similar to CRC-32, but more accurate) of files. The program is not as flexible as FileCheck, given its specific purpose design, but it works fine for this, and is simpler to use.
After doing a clean install of BD and rebooting, I deleted the files in the '
..\Beyond Divinity\DirectX9' folder (since they are not needed if/once DirectX 9 is installed). Then I used FileCheck to create a crc file of the game folders, installed the 1.45 patch and did so again, both before starting the game (I repeated this procedure with the 1.47 patch).
With the 1.49 patch I did a clean install as above, but also deleted the '..\Beyond Divinity\protect.dll' file and the 'StarForce Driver Installation' folder, before using both DVDsig and FileCheck to create md5 and crc files, respectively.
If you compare the appropriate CRC/MD5 file to your install, it should tell you if there are any corrupt files. You do not need to worry about moving any saved games out of the
savegames folder or deleting the files in the dynamic folders, since new files will not be tested by either program, just those listed in the verification files.
If you have started the game and changed any options, there will be differences reported in the
config.div and
keylist.txt files. The '
..\Beyond Divinity\Editor\dgen_themes.000' file is also changed once the game is started.
Some time after the initial release for the game, the intro video was updated, so there may be a difference reported in the '..\Beyond Divinity\Static\intro.mpg' file, if you have CDs produced after that point. If you can see and get past the intro video, you can safely ignore any 'errors' reported for the this file.
There are several files in the
Beyond Divinity folder created when the game is started or options are changed, including
init.cfg, mapids.000, persist.dat, sinfo.000, slashed-d3d6.cfg, slashed.cfg, sound.cfg and
starlog.txt. A couple other files are also added, but another crc/md5 file including these wouldn't help much, since most or all are system or option dependent, so these files would usually be reported as different regardless of being valid or corrupt.
At least the
config.div,
slashed.cfg and
slashed-d3d6.cfg files in the
Beyond Divinity folder can be deleted, and the configuration program / game will recreate them the next time it is started.
The crc and md5 files below are based on the original release UK English version; the North American version should be the same, but the Australian version will have differences (it uses a different copy protection).
Beyond Divinity DVDsig (293 KB) - program and md5 files
[*] Extract the zip to a temporary location, then copy/move the DVDsig.exe file and the dvdsig.md5 file from the appropriate folder to the 'Beyond Divinity' folder. The filename for the md5 file is set, so each version included in the zip file (the 1.1 original release and 1.49 patched game, as well as one for the 1.49 patch file itself) is in a separate subfolder.
[*] Run the DVDsig.exe file, then click on 'Verify' in the toolbar.
OR;
Beyond Divinity CRC files (192 KB) - patch versions 1.1 and 1.49
old CRC files (190 KB) - older patches, 1.45 and 1.47
[*] FileCheck expects the files to be in the original locations to verify, so if you installed BD to a location other than the default (
C:\Program Files\Larian Studios\Beyond Divinity), open the CRC file in Wordpad (for example), and do a search-and-replace so the file/folder paths match your install.
If your CRC/MD5 values match, it is not the game itself, but likely a conflict with something else in your system or a problem in the saved game folder. When examining the list of 'errors' either program produces, potential problem files would be those with an error trying to read, or with a large size difference (especially zero byte files) from the known good install.
