Game on HD suddenly quit loading

I have a strange problem. I borrowed the PC version of GTA: San Andreas from a friend of mine. I installed it and played it for a while. I returned the disk and played the game with a "no CD" crack for a while without any problems. Then, I quit the game for a bit and went for a walk. When I came back, the game will not load. When I click on the icon, it shows the windows hourglass for a fraction of a second, then does nothing. In windows task manager, the exe file for the game does not show up. I re-clicked on the icon a dozen times...nothing. I ran every every malware and virus remover I have and nothing out of the ordinary showed up. I borrowed the original disk again, reinstalled, and it still does the same thing -nothing. I then made a disk image and ran it from a virtual drive -still nothing (just the winhourglass for .3 seconds!). Can anyone please help me??!
I believe the problem is something simple and I just overlooked it (my history with computers!).
Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

 

I don't think you'll get any help here. If your friend wants to sell you his GTA: San Andreas or give the game to you that's one thing. But borrowing his game CD, installing the game and then running it with a "No-CD crack" is piracy and it's illegal.