Sounds like an anti-piracy measure. (Something like: person A installs the game, copies the installed files and gives them to person B, but person B has different hardware, so the game objects.)

Are you using an original copy installed from the original disks?

You can also try installing to a hard disk image and booting into real DOS from within DOSBox; certain hard drive functionality (which may be necessary for the anti-piracy measure, if that is the case) is not otherwise available normally in DOSBox.

Yes, I am using original install files, how ever I am mounting the folder they are in rather than a physical disk drive.

I am mounting the folder they are in to A: with the '-t floppy' command.

When I install everything seems to go well. But launching the game immediately throws the error.

I am not familiar with the process of booting into real dos within dosbox. Is it similiar to what is posted here: Sample usage of a harddisc image in DOSBOX

I see Chessmaster 3000 listed as compatible with dosbox on the games list.... so I find it strange I am the only person online posting this problem.

I went ahead and tried various versions of the game from around the net wondering if maybe there was a problem with my version - but they all give me the exact same error.

exofreeze wrote:

I am not familiar with the process of booting into real dos within dosbox. Is it similiar to what is posted here: Sample usage of a harddisc image in DOSBOX

Yes, something like that. But that is a very old thread. You can follow some of the instructions at the start of the booting Win9x guide.

I see Chessmaster 3000 listed as compatible with dosbox on the games list...

You mean at http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=C ? I only see Chessmaster 4000.

[Thread moved to DOSBox Games/Apps. Section]

Seems I would need original dos 6.22 install disks to do something like this?

No, what gives you that idea? Any old bootable floppy disk will do; you may very well even be able to do what you need with the provided 2 GB FreeDOS disk image.

follow-up - eventually after trying like 8 copies of the game, I found one that plays fine. No explanation why this one works and the others don't.... the files look identical.

So you were unable to get anywhere with the hard drive image?

exofreeze wrote:

the files look identical.

The sure way to check if files are really identical is to verify a checksum with a utility such as WinMD5.

i think it may be done quicker with WinMerge