EquitisMortis

I'm not completely sure how to deal with a cd version, or did you download it directly from Rockstar? But I can try to help.
 
Somewhere on your hard drive should be a file at least containing the games memory, that's what you need to find.
For a steam version you would open up File Explorer or My Computer, then find your hard drive or "Local Disk", it's usually the "C" drive. From there you would go to Program Files (x86) and open that up. After that you would go to "Steam", but for you, you may be able to go to the "Rockstar Games" file (that contains only the Social Club app for me but your game data might be saved in there).  For me, I would next go to "Steam Apps" and open that up, but you might be able to skip that step since your files would, i'm assuming, be in the Rockstar folder.  From there I click on my "common" folder, but since your running a Rockstar or disk edition, a "Grand Theft Auto V" or "common" folder might be there in your "Rockstar Games" folder. If anything I've guessed is right that's where your "Grand Theft Auto V" file should be, if it is, make a copy and rename THE ORIGINAL FILE. I can't stress that enough, you don't want to rename the file you'll be putting mods into; so I renamed the original folder to simply "GTA V", and renamed my copied folder to "Grand Theft Auto V".
From there, you should be able to follow the instructions I put earlier and hopefully that'll do the trick. Unfortunately this issue seems to have been a problem for almost a year now with random people being affected. I kinda had to go through everyone's solutions to fix my own issues, but this just means I've gotten a lot of practice dealing with this lol.
Keep me updated on this thread, or you can make your own and copy a link and post it here, this was I can try to help you through this. I know it's annoying going through all this, but so far LSPDFR has been a lot of fun and completely worth the effort. Also, posting up screen shots of what your doing helps us see what youre seeing, so feel free to upload as many pics as needed, especially of the files and any error messages you run across.
I also found this video to be helpful with basic installation, and it brings you through the basic steps of downloading. I recommend trying it exactly like the video says first, then going to another video he put in the description or comments. If both of those videos don't help, then definitely try the steps I've put on this thread and hopefully it works. It took me 2 weeks and about 40-50 hours trying to figure this out, mostly due to copying files, downloading files, and even having to redownload the complete game, so don't feel bad or get overwhelmed, you'll figure it out and the people on this forum are here to help.
 
heres the video:
 
 
Thanks @Babylon, I really appreciate all the help you and the other guys on this forum gave me. Of course I'll try to help now, I'm no expert, but I've spent enough time going through all these files; I might as well help people with the info I've learned! Happy Patrolling to you too!

Glad you got this sorted in the end and its good that you have included the successful solution. What I would say as one way of extending your gratitude - would be to pop in the forum's from time to time and assist with others whom are having any issues in getting everything to run - more so now - as you have proven to us all that problem solving seems to be your thing!
Happy Patrolling @EquitisMortis!

I FINALLY GOT IT TO WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I post what I did in the hopes it helps others:
Basically I had LSPDFR, Rage, and Scripthook in my "Grand Theft Auto V" folder, the name is important.
I then went into my Windows Defender and completely disabled it, while there I set my "Grand Theft Auto V" folder as a security exception. But even with that it still wasnt working.
I then downloaded OpenIV.
In OpenIV theres a tab called ASI Download (or something like that), I was missing 2 things in there, so I downloaded them.
I then received a folder in my "Grand Theft Auto V" folder entitled "mods".
I renamed that folder to "MODS1", the caps are important.
I made sure that my "Grand Theft Auto V" folder was in the "common" folder, which it wasn't.
After that I loaded up the game through Rage, but not as an admin.
It worked from there and everything loaded up fine. Tested it several times and even restarted my pc just to make sure everything was kosher!
 
I hope this helps anybody having similar issues!
 
and a very big thank you to everyone who helped me on this, I truly appreciate the help and I can't extend my gratitude enough! Thank you!

It should work via Steam. the folder name is your issue. I don't know why Steam is redownloading your game or whatever. But when you get Steam to stop messing about. Your game should be fine since having the folder Grand Theft Auto V will let RPH run.

I'll run through the options you gave just so you can easily see what I have or have not done so it's simple lol.
 
#1- I'm not using any anti-virus at all. I never saw the point lol. If I should be using something to make the game work let me know.
#2- Vanilla does open normally. Although within the past 10 minutes Steam was giving me trouble, but I verified the cache and now it's trying to install updates...which is taking way longer than it should, but I'm at work the internet may be sucking lol.
#3- I'll definitely give that a shot once this update is complete.
#4- Yep. Installed everything in the correct order except Open IV. I thought Open IV was just the GTA IV map mod, but if I need it I'll download it.
#5- Yes, I just reverified my game cache. It's trying to install an update now (could that have been part of the problem?), and yes I own the Steam copy of the game lol.
#6- I'm using Windows 10, and I'm using DirectX 12. Not sure if that DirectX12 is a good thing or not. As I said in the original post I'm new to PC gaming lol, so bear with me.
 
On a personal note I appreciate the help Techengage because I have no idea what I'm doing lol. Once this update finishes I'll try your suggestions and post the results.
[edit] the update is telling me it'll be done in about 6-9 hours lol. So if I don't respond by Saturday just respond to this in case I forget lol; but hopefully I'll respond by at least tomorrow night (I work nights so I'm trying to get all this done at work lol)