CD-ROM fails to read the ArcGIS Desktop CD

Description

Occasionally, the CD-ROM drive is unable to read the ArcGIS Desktop CD. There are different symptoms associated with this, including the CD spinning up and never stopping, or an I/O error occurring during the installation.

Cause

High speed CD-ROM drives are sometimes unable to buffer the heavily compressed data on the CD.

Solution or Workaround

• If on a network, share another machine's CD-ROM drive over the network and map to that CD-ROM drive to install from there.
• Copy the contents of the CD to the hard drive and install from there.
• Hold down the 'Shift' key and then insert the CD. (This disables the autorun). Browse to the CD-ROM drive using Window Explorer and double-click setup.exe.
• If the CD has already been placed in the drive and will not stop spinning, end the autorun.exe process in Windows Task Manager. When the process ends, browse to the CD-ROM drive using Window Explorer and double-click setup.exe.
• If the machine has a CD-RW drive, uninstall any software associated with it, for example, Adaptec Easy CD Creator. Also, upgrade the firmware associated with the CD-ROM drive.