My latest problem with bf2142 is a maddening one.

I've run the game fine - more or less - for over a year. I've had to run it as administrator and not in XP compatibility mode and this has worked pretty much without a hitch for 13+ months with both my CD and my brother's CD getting the job done. About one month ago (when I was setting up for a TGU class which gave me a heart attack) one of the CD's began to inexplicably not boot the game. In a rush, I used the other CD at my disposal; and that did boot. I thought it was rather strange, and left the matter be.

A week ago, my other CD broke and would not start up. I tried to access the CD but Vista couldn't find it at all. I'd click on my computer, right click to open the CD and it would eject it immediately saying something like "insert a CD please". Vista seems completely unaware that there is a CD in the drive.

Oddly enough, I managed to reinstall 2142, and that fixed the problem until a couple days ago when it broke again. This time I couldn't reinstall (I have no idea how I managed to before: it doesn't make sense).

The most frustrating thing is that both CD's work for my brother's XP machine perfectly (which leads me to think that it is a Vista problem). To make matters worse, there is absolutely no other hitch with any other game I played. The BF2142 CD's are scratched, but so is every game CD I have - in fact, many other game CD's which work just fine on Vista are more scratched than 2142

-I've tried disabling start-up programs (which never caused me any trouble in the past) and that hasn't worked.
-I've tried reinstalling over the LAN with my brother's CD drive on his XP machine and it installed (as far as I can tell); but I don't know how to use my brother's CD drive to boot the game so I'm not sure what I accomplished.

If anyone has any idea what could be wrong, I would be much obliged. I am currently ramming my head against the wall attempting to think up a solution, as none of this makes any sense.

Thanks in advance,

-Umbra