master.dat problem for fallout

mayor_of_munchkinville

First time out of the vault
Hello. Sorry if this has been posted before but here is my problem.

When I go to install my game it installs correctly all the way until the very end of the red bar. Then I get an error that says something along the lines of error reading master.dat file. Then about 2 minutes later the install says it has completed successfully. When I go to play it, it loads up then goes to a black screen for about 2 seconds then crashes back to the desktop.

Now I tried installing it on my father's machine and it installed without having any errors. No master.dat error came up and when I went to load up the game I didnt have any problem.

This is what I dont understand. Both computers have xp installed. He has an ati card, 9800pro. I have an x850. I dont understand why his computer installs the game and runs it fine and mine doesnt.

I think the main problem might be that master.dat error I get but that is in installation. I dont know what I can do to get it working.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
I am sorry but I didnt see any soluation to the master.dat error that I get. If you need more information then here it is:

I have directx9.0c.

I have 2.25 gig of free space on my computer.

I have 1,000 memory.

My page file says 350 meg used, 2100 remaining.

I installed the game when the cd rom came up there was a picture of fallout asking me if i wanted to install. I hit the button and it went into the install option. When I hit that button a message came up asking about the latest direct x. I hit no as I currently have the latest version of direct x. Same message happened on my father's computer and it worked.

If there is any other information that is needed please let me know. I am not too good with computers so just to give people a little advance.
 
I am sorry I dont know what you mean. I explored the cd folder and tried to copy and paste the files like it said to. The problem is that I still get the error message about the master.dat. Everything copied over but I still get a master.dat file error. Do I need more than 2 gig of space?
 
My cd cant be damaged, it worked fine on my father's computer downstairs. No installation problem, no problem loading up, and no problem playing it. I didnt even have to do any fixes that were listed in sticky.
 
Some readers are more sensitive than others. You could try burning a new copy on your father's computer and see if that works.
 
Right, so it got damaged in the mean time.
There is no other possible answer. CDs get damaged, tough luck. The only thing that could matter is that your dad has a CD-ROM-player that can still read the damaged areas (although that probably won't last too long), and you don't. So if you can, back it up. Otherwise, get a new copy.
 
....
Didn't I just write:
"The only thing that could matter is that your dad has a CD-ROM-player that can still read the damaged areas (although that probably won't last too long), and you don't."

So yes, that could be it. Though it *is* because the CD is damaged, if it weren't damaged, the DVD drive would have no problems with it.
 
Just to give you an update. I bought a new cd of fallout and it works fine on my computer. I just thought it was odd that my old cd worked on my father's computer and not mine. You would think that if the cd was broken it wouldnt work on any computer.
 
Some CD-ROM drives have better tolerances than others. Modern DVD drives are particularly finnicky -I have a DVD-ROM an a CD-WORM drive and if ever the DVD drive won't read a CD the CD drive can sometimes make it work, especially with odd, old, or burned CDs -naturally its capacity to burn would lead one to believe that it is accustomed to handling burned discs.
 
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