I've been attempting to install Skyrim via hard disc but every time i place the disc in the tray it fails to install or even load an installation prompt. The disc tray persists in making sounds as if it cannot read the disc. I thought the disc i had was defective so I exchanged it for another to discover the same result. All other games, DVD's, and CD's work perfectly well so I am left doubting a hardware error. Have there been a series of defective discs distributed? Perhaps there is something I am missing. If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate the help.

Have you tried running the setup.exe directly from the DVD yet? They added that to the Installing and Playing the Game part of the guide (a whole 3 lines of "help" on the 2nd page of the manual).

I can't say I've heard that complaint yet, but there's a lot of threads here to try and get through. I do know some people said Steam wouldn't read the disk, instead forcing them to download the game. I don't know if that's the same as your issue or not, though.

When I put the disk into my drive it took a couple minutes to start playing nice. It clicked and clacked away like the drive was breaking and then it was fine. I've had a couple of games do like that and it was generally a matter of waiting for it to settle down

The two copies of the game I bought (from different locations) both had CD Keys valid for Steam activation. Open your Steam, and simply Add the CD Key to your Steam Account (i.e. activate). You can then download it from Steam directly for installation. Takes longer of course, but if your CD is indeed bad (or your DVD drive won't read it for some reason) this will bypass that problem for you.

Thank you for the quick reply Spencer. While searching for possible answers I allowed the disc to sit in the tray for approximately 5 minutes when it suddenly began the install wizard. I suppose I jumped to conclusions prematurely because of unfamiliar sounds emanating from my PC because of the Skyrim disc. Hopefully no further issues arise.

Cool, glad it worked out for you! Sounds like you experienced what Arghun described above.