For Gabriel Knight 3, it isn’t a problem to install from the physical CD and then run the game with the image. It doesn’t complain about the source/paths being wrong. With Quake 2 though, it is an issue. Nothing loads or plays correctly. Especially the redbook audio.

I’ve checked through the files and the registry editor to see if I can change the source/drive letter, but can’t find anything. So I’m not quite sure what to do with this one.

I install from a networked drive and haven't seen that issue. Is the Disc mounted directly on the System in question?

Unless the rips are done wrong, or there is some form of copy protection as long as your CD is mounted at the same drive letter it was installed from I do not think there should be these issues normally.

some things I'd like to know

- operating system
- virtual drive brand and version
- have you verified the disc image if iso 7-zip can do that

Some games require the virtual drive letter to be before any other optical alphabetical address to work

I assume from previous comments you are storing your images on a second drive. Can you make a fresh image directly on the OS drive and use that to install a game? To rule out any shenanigans in the underlying storage

If that works then copy one of the "non working" images from the secondary drive to the OS drive and see if that works

I figure something will pop up during testing. If all fails then the software is probably bugged out and needs to be reinstalled.

Shagittarius wrote on Yesterday, 22:56:

I install from a networked drive and haven't seen that issue. Is the Disc mounted directly on the System in question?

Unless the rips are done wrong, or there is some form of copy protection as long as your CD is mounted at the same drive letter it was installed from I do not think there should be these issues normally.

I networked drive? Like what DaveDDS suggested to me where you use a local network between the retro PC and the main PC? Or is that something different?

Well, to make sure, I re-created the image on my main PC with Imgburn. Everything seems to be in order. I’m also not 100% if the Quake 2 disc has copy protection. I’m not even sure about GK3’s first disc, though I did try CloneCD with that and still had an issue during install.
If I install Quake 2 from the physical CD then the drive letter will be different. And yet with GK3 it doesn’t seem to be an issue; it accepts the mounted image when loading/playing. But for Quake 2’s image, the installer goes far too quickly.

I can’t reply to the other posts yet as I’m about to head to work, so I’ll answer the other questions later.

zapbuzz wrote on Today, 03:41:

some things I'd like to know […]
Show full quote

some things I'd like to know

- operating system
- virtual drive brand and version
- have you verified the disc image if iso 7-zip can do that

Some games require the virtual drive letter to be before any other optical alphabetical address to work

OS: Windows 98 SE.
VD: It's the one from Alcohol 120%. It's listed as an SCSIVAX CD/DVD-ROM
Quake 2 has redbook audio, so it's a BIN and CUE file. Not sure if 7Zip can verify those...?

It's set before the physical CD drive. It's G and the physical, H.

NeoG_ wrote on Today, 04:01:

I assume from previous comments you are storing your images on a second drive. Can you make a fresh image directly on the OS drive and use that to install a game? To rule out any shenanigans in the underlying storage

If that works then copy one of the "non working" images from the secondary drive to the OS drive and see if that works

I figure something will pop up during testing. If all fails then the software is probably bugged out and needs to be reinstalled.

Well, I've included my previous 80GB HDD too, so I can store image backups of the C drive and just for any general data storage. So I have C (Windows), D (games), E (CD images), and D (backups). I think I did create a new image under 98, though it was saved to the E drive. I can try re-doing it on the C drive and see what happens. And copying it from E to C.

The first thought that came to mind is the E drive (Deathstar) could be the culprit, but only two games have had this issue so far. I have got some more games to install, so we'll see if there are any others.

Is this the same computer with the questionable storage subsystem that we've talked about a lot in Advice on bigger HDDs beyond 128GB ?

If so, I think the root problem goes back to the questionable storage subsystem.

douglar wrote on Today, 13:47:

Is this the same computer with the questionable storage subsystem that we've talked about a lot in Advice on bigger HDDs beyond 128GB ?

If so, I think the root problem goes back to the questionable storage subsystem.

Eh-heh, yeah, it is. ^^; I'm guessing a change of HDD wouldn't make any difference...? If there's some underlying issue elsewhere?

NeoG_ wrote on Today, 04:01:

I assume from previous comments you are storing your images on a second drive. Can you make a fresh image directly on the OS drive and use that to install a game? To rule out any shenanigans in the underlying storage

If that works then copy one of the "non working" images from the secondary drive to the OS drive and see if that works

I figure something will pop up during testing. If all fails then the software is probably bugged out and needs to be reinstalled.

Yeah, so copying an image from one drive to another isn't a problem. The problem is copying the contents of the image. Even after it's been copied to the C drive, mounted, and the cotents copied and pasted to C, whenever it gets to pak0.pak, it gives an error saying 'Cannot copy pak0. The system cannot read from the specified device.'

DustyShinigami wrote on Today, 14:01:

NeoG_ wrote on Today, 04:01:

I assume from previous comments you are storing your images on a second drive. Can you make a fresh image directly on the OS drive and use that to install a game? To rule out any shenanigans in the underlying storage

If that works then copy one of the "non working" images from the secondary drive to the OS drive and see if that works

I figure something will pop up during testing. If all fails then the software is probably bugged out and needs to be reinstalled.

Yeah, so copying an image from one drive to another isn't a problem. The problem is copying the contents of the image. Even after it's been copied to the C drive, mounted, and the cotents copied and pasted to C, whenever it gets to pak0.pak, it gives an error saying 'Cannot copy pak0. The system cannot read from the specified device.'

It still sounds like the geometry on your drives is screwed up somehow or not all the bits of the storage addresses are making it to the drive. Things work fine for a while working inside the first few GB of each drive, but eventually something happens as you get farther into the storage where writes folds over and end up on top of existing files or the writes go off into nowhere land and are not preserved.

douglar wrote on Today, 14:20:

DustyShinigami wrote on Today, 14:01:

NeoG_ wrote on Today, 04:01:

I assume from previous comments you are storing your images on a second drive. Can you make a fresh image directly on the OS drive and use that to install a game? To rule out any shenanigans in the underlying storage

If that works then copy one of the "non working" images from the secondary drive to the OS drive and see if that works

I figure something will pop up during testing. If all fails then the software is probably bugged out and needs to be reinstalled.

Yeah, so copying an image from one drive to another isn't a problem. The problem is copying the contents of the image. Even after it's been copied to the C drive, mounted, and the cotents copied and pasted to C, whenever it gets to pak0.pak, it gives an error saying 'Cannot copy pak0. The system cannot read from the specified device.'

It still sounds like the geometry on your drives is screwed up somehow or not all the bits of the storage addresses are making it to the drive. Things work fine for a while working inside the first few GB of each drive, but eventually something happens as you get farther into the storage where writes folds over and end up on top of existing files or the writes go off into nowhere land and are not preserved.

Hmm. Sounds plausible. I won't pretend in understanding completely what goes on under the hood, but something is definitely off somewhere. It's finished creating another image of the game's disc on the C drive. It copies the pak0.pak file without issue, but only through copy and paste. Installing it is another matter though. The installer still goes by too quickly and especially when it gets to that file. The maximum install should be 400MB and it only winds up as 100MB by the end. 🙁

douglar wrote on Today, 14:20:

DustyShinigami wrote on Today, 14:01:

NeoG_ wrote on Today, 04:01:

I assume from previous comments you are storing your images on a second drive. Can you make a fresh image directly on the OS drive and use that to install a game? To rule out any shenanigans in the underlying storage

If that works then copy one of the "non working" images from the secondary drive to the OS drive and see if that works

I figure something will pop up during testing. If all fails then the software is probably bugged out and needs to be reinstalled.

Yeah, so copying an image from one drive to another isn't a problem. The problem is copying the contents of the image. Even after it's been copied to the C drive, mounted, and the cotents copied and pasted to C, whenever it gets to pak0.pak, it gives an error saying 'Cannot copy pak0. The system cannot read from the specified device.'

It still sounds like the geometry on your drives is screwed up somehow or not all the bits of the storage addresses are making it to the drive. Things work fine for a while working inside the first few GB of each drive, but eventually something happens as you get farther into the storage where writes folds over and end up on top of existing files or the writes go off into nowhere land and are not preserved.

What would be the best solution? Are there tests I can run? Would I need to replace all the hard drives? Reformat? I'm not sure what to do.

DustyShinigami wrote on Today, 14:45:

douglar wrote on Today, 14:20:

DustyShinigami wrote on Today, 14:01:

Yeah, so copying an image from one drive to another isn't a problem. The problem is copying the contents of the image. Even after it's been copied to the C drive, mounted, and the cotents copied and pasted to C, whenever it gets to pak0.pak, it gives an error saying 'Cannot copy pak0. The system cannot read from the specified device.'

It still sounds like the geometry on your drives is screwed up somehow or not all the bits of the storage addresses are making it to the drive. Things work fine for a while working inside the first few GB of each drive, but eventually something happens as you get farther into the storage where writes folds over and end up on top of existing files or the writes go off into nowhere land and are not preserved.

What would be the best solution? Are there tests I can run? Would I need to replace all the hard drives? Reformat? I'm not sure what to do.

I'd be interested to know if win9x uses MS-DOS compatibility mode on your system. Open Control Panel > System > Performance. If your drives are in compatibility mode, you will see a messages like "Drive X is using compatibility mode file system"

If you see that, it means that when Windows started, it detected something unexpected and didn't try to enable protected mode drivers.

douglar wrote on Today, 14:57:

I'd be interested to know if win9x uses MS-DOS compatibility mode on your system. Open Control Panel > System > Performance. I […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on Today, 14:45:

douglar wrote on Today, 14:20:

It still sounds like the geometry on your drives is screwed up somehow or not all the bits of the storage addresses are making it to the drive. Things work fine for a while working inside the first few GB of each drive, but eventually something happens as you get farther into the storage where writes folds over and end up on top of existing files or the writes go off into nowhere land and are not preserved.

What would be the best solution? Are there tests I can run? Would I need to replace all the hard drives? Reformat? I'm not sure what to do.

I'd be interested to know if win9x uses MS-DOS compatibility mode on your system. Open Control Panel > System > Performance. If your drives are in compatibility mode, you will see a messages like "Drive X is using compatibility mode file system"

The attachment 2.jpg is no longer available

If you see that, it means that when Windows started, it detected something unexpected and didn't try to enable protected mode drivers.

Interesting. But no, they're not in compatibility mode. I've never seen that before. Even with old PCs we had. It's usually this:

It tends to happen when dos disk drivers are loaded.

Certain dos atapi or scsi drivers trigger it, iirc.

wierd_w wrote on Today, 15:30:

It tends to happen when dos disk drivers are loaded.

Certain dos atapi or scsi drivers trigger it, iirc.

Here's what happens for the standard protected mode IDE driver ESDI_506.PDR :
1. The "NoIDE" Registry Flag - the driver checks HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\IOS for a value named NoIDE. If this exists (often placed by Windows after a crash), the driver aborts.
2. "Safe to Hook" Check - The I/O Supervisor (IOS) checks if the drive is already being managed by a driver other than the motherboard BIOS. If it is handled by a DOS driver and the driver is not listed in the c:\windows\IOS.INI "safe" list, the protected-mode driver aborts.
3. Controller Validation - The driver attempts to communicate directly with the IDE controller's I/O ports . if the the "Busy" bit stays on too long, the protected mode driver fails to initialize.
4. ATA Identity Command - The protected mode driver wants to see a 512-byte block of data containing the model number, firmware version, the drive geometry and capabilities like LBA support. If the drive returns garbage or fails to respond, the protected-mode driver exits.
5. Interrupt validation - The protected-mode driver triggers a simple command and waits for the hardware interrupt for the returned results. If the interrupt smells funny, the protected-mode driver exits. This catches many newer IDE controllers.
6. Geometry Sync - compares the geometry returned by the identify device command against the BIOS drive table. If there is a discrepancy that it cannot understand, the protected-mode driver exits.

So it sounds like windows is passing all those tests unless there is some odd third party IDE driver loaded.

Dusty said they had never seen the problem.

I should have been more clear: I was stating what the 'usual' cause of 'msdos compatability mode' being turned on was.

Not that their system was impacted that way.