[J.P.]

I'm trying to reinstall freespace 2, but every time I try to run it, it won't run. Sometimes I get an error saying that there is no cd in the other drive. If I have the disk in d: it will say there is no disk in e: and vice versa.

I've gone into the contents of the cd and tried directly clicking on the setup launcher but it still doesn't come up.

What's the deal?

-J.P.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Get FS2_Open and don't even bother with retail. 

[Fenrir]

Have you tried putting both CD`s in at the same time? (you are talking about multipe CD drives, right?)

[J.P.]

I thought that might work and so I had put both the first and second disc and it still did nothing but I didn't get any errors.

And I'm installing the retail because, honestly, I like the feel of the retail better than FSO. With all the bright colors of the new graphics in the FSO version it feels more like a star warsish space opera rather than the unique, dark, gritty, realistic atmosphere of the original. Although FSO is impressive, the paler, dirtier look of FS2 felt better to me.

-J.P.

[Fenrir]

That`s understandable. I like the shiny awesome SCP graphics, but sometimes people go a little over the edge with background nebulae. But that`s my only semi-complaint. Everything else is amazing and is worthy of having my children.

[Stormkeeper]

Is your CD in good condition? I know that using a CD will degrade it over time.

[J.P.]

It's got a lot of little scratches but nothing that has prevented it from working in the past. No huge scratches or anything. But I can't be sure so maybe I'll clean them or whatever at somepoint.

-J.P.

[Fenrir]

If you really need to you can use the FSO installer since it has Retail in it.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Just run FS2_Open with no mods selected.  It uses the retail data and graphics.  No disc necessary.

[Jeff Vader]

I like the feel of the retail better than FSO. With all the bright colors of the new graphics in the FSO version it feels more like a star warsish space opera rather than the unique, dark, gritty, realistic atmosphere of the original. Although FSO is impressive, the paler, dirtier look of FS2 felt better to me.

Oh, but there are so many things you can do with FSO: disable environment maps (no shiny ships), remove the LS Nebulae so that you'll get the retail ones, fiddle the lighting-related command-line options...

[BlueFlames]

Never having installed FS2 on a machine with multiple optical drives, the only suggestion immediately popping to mind is to pick a drive to do the installation from, then temporarily disable the rest of your optical drives in Device Manager.  Once you have everything installed and the initial setup complete, turn everything back on, and hopefully, everything will be peachy.