Can't find Fallout 3 disc

So a while ago my motherboard fried and I ended up having to reformat my hard drive after installing a new one, but fortunately I was able to copy my files onto an external drive before reformatting.
I recently decided to try finishing Fallout 3 since I didn't have the chance before the reformat, but I can't find the disc anywhere. I have all the files still on my external drive so I tried moving them to my main hd and downloaded a no cd patch for it but all I get is the menu that asks if I want to install the game. Does anyone know what other files I need in order to make the launcher recognize that the game files are all there? I have all the files from the launch folder, AppData folder, and Documents folder. What's missing?

You need to reinstall, you would be missing all of the registry entries. I'm not sure if you can order replacement media if you have a valid key.

Isn't fallout steamworks? Have you tried activating your product key on steam?

I.M.O.G. said:

You need to reinstall, you would be missing all of the registry entries. I'm not sure if you can order replacement media if you have a valid key.

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A similar thing happened on my roommate's computer a while back. She had the game as well, but she lost a lot of stuff when she moved. One of those things was her fallout disc, so I moved the files to her computer and she had the same issue. Since we were on a network I just looked through each folder one by one to compare and eventually got it working again when I found the missing files. The only problem is that I don't remember what they were since that was a couple years ago.

pwnmachine said:

Isn't fallout steamworks? Have you tried activating your product key on steam?

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I didn't install it with steam since I didn't have it when I bought the game. The game files are in a "Bethesda Softworks" folder in my program files.

^ But do you have the key?

pwnmachine said:

^ But do you have the key?

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The key is in the box with the disc

Only place program files are going to be is the program files folder or within the all users/your username folder.

It may be the case that no registry entires are required to run, however that is where your product activation and other important setup functions are stored. I don't know how you intend to get around that, but essentially you no longer have the disc or the CD key... you would need to rebuy to do it the legal way.

Is there no way you can access you GFWL account and find it there?

I.M.O.G. said:

Only place program files are going to be is the program files folder or within the all users/your username folder.

It may be the case that no registry entires are required to run, however that is where your product activation and other important setup functions are stored. I don't know how you intend to get around that, but essentially you no longer have the disc or the CD key... you would need to rebuy to do it the legal way.

Click to expand...

Like I said, I've pulled it off before. I just don't remember how:/ I may just end up buying it on steam. It's $20 I'd rather not spend since I already paid for it, but I don't know what else to do.

Wait til it is on sale on steam, I've seen it for as cheap as $5 during their various sales. Or you can get it with all of the expansions for only a bit more.

It is reasons like this that I don't buy physical media unless I have to. And when I do I copy the serial number into a document and put it on a share in the cloud

Same here Janus. While I was never one to ever lose disks. I still had my original Windows 98 disk until I tossed it 2 yrs ago. I have started to replace my game disks with digital downloads from various stores online. Love having the space back and on demand when I need it. Also the game keys can be retrieved with ease when needed from email or store website.