Harry Potter wrote on 2026-04-27, 00:23:

DustyShinigami: Just an unrelated tip: when you run a batch file, DOS will automatically print out every line of the batch file it runs. You can disable this by adding "@echo off" to the beginning of the file. This will tell DOS to not display each line. DOS will reset this at the end of the batch file or when a new batch file starts. Putting @ at the beginning of a line will tell DOS not to display just that line.

Thanks. Oh yeah, I’m aware about the Echo part. Although I wasn’t aware about the @. 🙂 I do sometimes add it, but often I just forget. Once everything’s working as it should, I’ll be sure to add it.

Good. 😀

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-04-26, 22:45:

OK so you will need to adjust your strategy somewhat to correctly mount and unmount images multiple times per reboot […]
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OK so you will need to adjust your strategy somewhat to correctly mount and unmount images multiple times per reboot

• Running "SHSUCDX /D:MSCD001" once at boot time in autoexec is fine
• SHSUCDX needs to be unloaded to correctly run a new drive configration with "SHSUCDX /U" before running it again
• You have set drive letter "E" which is an unavailable drive letter for the virtual CD, it may affect drive letter assignments
• After running the game you need to reset SHSUCDHX and SHSUCDHD to remove the virtual images

So at the start of a game's batch file you will need

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1REM Replace physical drive with virtual drive
2SHSUCDX /U
3LH SHSUCDHD /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD1\DISK1.ISO /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD2\DISK2.ISO /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD3\DISK3.ISO /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD4\DISK4.ISO
4LH SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH,G

And after the game has run at the end of the batch file

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1REM Unload virtual CD drive and restore physical drive
2SHSUCDX /U
3SHSUCDHD /U
4LH SHSUCDX /D:MSCD001,G

Great. This works perfectly! Thank you. 😄

So the SHSUCD driver has to be uninstalled first before it can set the virtual drives up properly?

Also, regarding this:

1REM Replace physical drive with virtual drive
2SHSUCDX /U
3LH SHSUCDHD /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD1\DISK1.ISO /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD2\DISK2.ISO /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD3\DISK3.ISO /F:E:\DOS\MOON\CD4\DISK4.ISO
4LH SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH,G

Not sure if it was intentional, but I see you’ve added each disk on a new line. Can that be done in a batch file? Because when I tried it just gave me a Bad command or file name for each. Like it doesn’t understand the break and that the first line is linked to the other commands.

It’s a formatting issue on the forum, I didn’t put each disc on a new line it just appears that way on smaller screens because of word wrap

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-04-27, 22:06:

It’s a formatting issue on the forum, I didn’t put each disc on a new line it just appears that way on smaller screens because of word wrap

Ahh, so it does. Yeah, I was looking at it on my phone at the time. ^^;

Has anyone had any luck with multiple images loaded for Sierra games? Specifically Phantasmagoria? Possibly Gabriel Knight 2 as well? For some reason, Phantasmagoria will only allow three images at a time. When it gets to the fourth, I just get this:

The individual images are fine as far as I know. They were recreated using Omi. And mounting the fourth disc/image works fine. Or... is this the character limit wierd_w mentioned? These directories are quite a mouthful. ^^; So it's possible I'll need to use relative paths for these games...?

Despite that though, I get the impression the game only wants to make use of one CD drive...? Unlike Tex Murphy, there's no option to assign multiple physical/virtual CD drives for each disc. Or can that be got around by adding the drives in a config file, perhaps...?

It may well be. It's 255 character max length for the command line.

DustyShinigami wrote on Yesterday, 16:38:

Despite that though, I get the impression the game only wants to make use of one CD drive...? Unlike Tex Murphy, there's no option to assign multiple physical/virtual CD drives for each disc. Or can that be got around by adding the drives in a config file, perhaps...?

You can copy all the robot (*.rbt) and movie (*.vmd) files off the CDs and point the directory entries in resource.cfg at them, then the discs aren't needed at all. This is how the GOG version of Phantasmagoria works.

If you wanted to try and fit more CD images into the same command line you could do this;

• Add the location of SHSUCDX to PATH with SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\DOSPRO\SHSUCD, that way you can call SHSUCD directly without the full pathname, that reduces some overhead
• As a general strategy you should have something like a C:\DOSPRO\BIN folder where you have a copy of all additional utils you want to be able to call without a full path and add that to the PATH variable, but the above is fine for testing
• Before running SHSUCDHD, do a CD to the game disc folder in the batch file
• Mount the images using relative locations

So in Autoexec.bat

1SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\DOSPRO\SHSUCD

Then in the game batch

1REM Replace physical drive with virtual drive
2E:
3CD \CDS\PHANTA~1
4SHSUCDX /U
5LH SHSUCDHD /F:CD1\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD2\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD3\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD4\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD5\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD6\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD7\VOLUME~1.ISO
6LH SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH,G
7D:
8CD \DOS\SIERRA\SCARYDOS
9REM Rest of game commands

jmarsh wrote on Yesterday, 17:43:

DustyShinigami wrote on Yesterday, 16:38:

Despite that though, I get the impression the game only wants to make use of one CD drive...? Unlike Tex Murphy, there's no option to assign multiple physical/virtual CD drives for each disc. Or can that be got around by adding the drives in a config file, perhaps...?

You can copy all the robot (*.rbt) and movie (*.vmd) files off the CDs and point the directory entries in resource.cfg at them, then the discs aren't needed at all. This is how the GOG version of Phantasmagoria works.

Interesting. Good to know. Thanks. It's certainly one way around the problem, though I do like learning how to better manage something like SHSUCD. And how to juggle multiple images at once. 😀

NeoG_ wrote on Yesterday, 23:09:

If you wanted to try and fit more CD images into the same command line you could do this; […]
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If you wanted to try and fit more CD images into the same command line you could do this;

• Add the location of SHSUCDX to PATH with SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\DOSPRO\SHSUCD, that way you can call SHSUCD directly without the full pathname, that reduces some overhead
• As a general strategy you should have something like a C:\DOSPRO\BIN folder where you have a copy of all additional utils you want to be able to call without a full path and add that to the PATH variable, but the above is fine for testing
• Before running SHSUCDHD, do a CD to the game disc folder in the batch file
• Mount the images using relative locations

So in Autoexec.bat

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1SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\DOSPRO\SHSUCD

Then in the game batch

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1REM Replace physical drive with virtual drive
2E:
3CD \CDS\PHANTA~1
4SHSUCDX /U
5LH SHSUCDHD /F:CD1\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD2\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD3\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD4\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD5\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD6\VOLUME~1.ISO /F:CD7\VOLUME~1.ISO
6LH SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH,G
7D:
8CD \DOS\SIERRA\SCARYDOS
9REM Rest of game commands

Again - thanks for this. 😀 So that's something new I've not done before. I've been going about it with something like:

1SET SHSUCD=C:\DOSPRO\SHSUCD
2%SHSUCD%\SHSUSCDHD

But cutting out any reference to a path and just calling the program is much more convenient.

I'm curious: how large is your hard drive? How much of it is free? I might have some suggestions to better it. 😀 BTW, if you use a specific program often, you might want to add its path to the PATH variable in your autoexec.bat file. You might also want to install DOSKEY or an alternative: it uses macros to shorten repetitive tasks and has options to the command prompt including history browsing and better editing.

Harry Potter wrote on Yesterday, 23:49:

I'm curious: how large is your hard drive? How much of it is free? I might have some suggestions to better it. 😀 BTW, if you use a specific program often, you might want to add its path to the PATH variable in your autoexec.bat file. You might also want to install DOSKEY or an alternative: it uses macros to shorten repetitive tasks and has options to the command prompt including history browsing and better editing.

Ooh. Intriguing. To be honest, I forgot that setting something in one batch file, or the autoexec, is remembered across others.

But which HDD? 😄 If you mean the one I store my CD images on, then it’s about 320GB. I’ve used over 70GB so far.