ok there is this seemingly unpopular DOS/win95/98 game called sand warriors i've been trying to run it in dosbox72/73 and ive got no clue how to get it running properly

here are my specs
motherboard: dell e521
cpu: athanlonX2 3800+ (2ghz)
RAM: 3gb
GPU: nvidia 7300LE (128MB)

the rest doesn't matter yet
so when i try to install the game. it installs. all of the files are placed where they belong. no big problem yet. (note i have mounted the d drive as the optical disk drive, and my c drive as my dosbox games folder )
when i run the executable file in the folder in this case sw.exe (or just running sw in the folder)
it brings me to a screen asking me to register, after that is finished(register later), it tries running the game. but i get this error message
"SW ERROR: No CD-ROM drive detected"
my disk drive is mounted and my cd is in the drive. It even fails when i try running sw.exe in the disk drive itself with the same exact error message.

i need help please.

thanks