“The DVD-ROM could not be located.”

[Zappa]

I bought Gears for about weeks ago, and I haven't even been able to play it yet.
I've installed it (almost took freakin 50 minutes) and patched it, yet the piece of crap won't even start.
All I get is the message “The DVD-ROM could not be located. Please insert the correct DVD-ROM, click OK, and restart the application.”

So does anyone have any tips to how I could the game running?

I've been looking round the internet and the forums but haven't found anything.
The Issues & Solutions sticky in the forums offers no help.

"Resolution: This has most often been linked to an incompatibly between Gears of War and some virtual drive programs that could be running. A virtual drive program allows the user to use a portion of hard drive space to emulate a different drive or type of drive."
...To my knowledge I don't have any virtual drive programs running.

PS! Here's some info bout my computer:
Windows XP Professional
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS (640mb)
Intel Core2Duo E6750 (2.66 ghz)
4 gig RAM

[LAiN]

You could begin using a virtual drive, the opposite of what it wants you to do. People have had success with that. Create an image of your GoW disc with something like Nero and mount your image with Daemon Tools. If that doesn't work, I suppose you could also go find a No-DVD crack (against the terms+conditions, but if you PAID you should be allowed to PLAY right?)