I cannot figure out for the life of me why my cd drive won't read the disk

i'm pretty sure it's a command error, i believe that my cd rom drive can't read the disk being in there when i try and load a game, unless i'm doing it wrong

the problem is probably that I need to tell the cdrom to load the game from the disk, which is what mounting cdrom is supposed to do, right? this sucks, i wish i could open the game and then open a file from there

jeez, is this frusterating!

Would this addon work work with ProAsm's Shadow Warrior Port?

http://www.proasm.com/

If so then use that.

I don't believe any add on would work without the disk, i'll try this out though

this IS the entire game, right?

anyway i can't seem to open that site whatsoever

thanks for the help though, it was worth a shot even though i didn't get a chance to try it out

Proasm's SWP is a Shadow Warrior Port, it's a Windows replacement of the DOS executable that turns the game into a Windows game. So yes you'll need the full Shadow Warrior game and whatever addons you plan to use.

You can try Jonof's Shadow Warrior Port:
http://www.jonof.id.au/?p=jfsw

When Proasm's site comes back up download his port since it is newer.

imachavel - listen carefully. I am going to tell you how this site work, how most forums works. It works like this:

You come here asking for help from some of the brightest brain in the field.

We - the bright brains - offer help for free. No payment, no nothing. The only little thing we ask in return, is respect and answers to the question we ask. We live on information. Without information we whittle and die. Without respect, we shut up.

So, back to your problem. I wrote:

If that doesn't help, come back with details on how you mounted your C and D drives, how you did the install, how you configured sound, music etc.

And you replied with:

imachavel wrote:

here's my problem […]
Show full quote

here's my problem

if i mount to d, i can't open things in c without changing the directory to c, or is it still mounted in d, maybe i'm wrong and just got confused but i'm pretty sure it gets out of d to redirect it to c:

i'm not trying to play a game on the disk, the disk is needed to run these games on my computer

everything is already configured i believe the sound and everything there's no conflicting drivers or anything it's just that it won't open the games because apparently it can't find the disk even when the disk is inserted

let me try it one more time, maybe it'll work in dosbox i don't know
thanks

You did not come back with details about your mountings.
You did not tell me how you installed the game.
You did not tell me how you configured sound etc.

By not answering my questions, you ignored me, you showed me no respect. Time for me to shut up and die.

MiniMax I echo your sentiment.

imachavel, we were all noobs at one point. You need to realize that there is a learning curve. I see a lot of posts here and in other forums that look like this:

Plzzzz help me!!!! i put my disk in and game won't load!!!! what do i do next!!! i don want to read guides in your forum i just want instant answer now!!!!

Any threads that start out like that are automatically ignored by me. First off the proper way to start a thread requesting help would be something like this:

Hello! I have xxxxxxxx game that I am trying to load and I get the following error message: xxxxxxxxxxx
My computer is xxxxxxxx
with xxxxxxx CPU and xxxxxx RAM
xxxxxx video card.
My OS is xxxxxxx.
I am trying to run the game in (Plain DOS/DOSBOX/Virtual PC/VMWare/Windows9x) and can't get it to work.

I have ALREADY read through all your guides and tried the various tweaks/suggestions, read the included documentation for the game and even went to the game producer's forum but am stuck. Anyone have any suggestions?

Secondly, The many guides available here are written for novices so that after reading you could probably solve your own problem instead of waiting for a reply. You definitely need to read the guides since you aren't even sure whether you have MSCDEX active. And yes, you will have to wait for a response. You will not get a faster reply by adding messages like

imachavel wrote:

hello? is anyone there?

since as MiniMax stated we don't get paid to do this, we help out in our spare time. If you don't want to take the time to learn a little about how your computer works sell it and get an XBOX.

anyway I did answer the question:
"here's my problem

if i mount to d, i can't open things in c without changing the directory to c, or is it still mounted in d, maybe i'm wrong and just got confused but i'm pretty sure it gets out of d to redirect it to c:

i'm not trying to play a game on the disk, the disk is needed to run these games on my computer

everything is already configured i believe the sound and everything there's no conflicting drivers or anything it's just that it won't open the games because apparently it can't find the disk even when the disk is inserted

let me try it one more time, maybe it'll work in dosbox i don't know
thanks

it still didn't work, says "disk not found"

i'd say my computer is messed up, but the disk will work on it's own, really weird, huh?"

for the configuration, it configured it automatically

as for how I opened it, previously to reading your instructions i just directed the command such as cd\
upon opening the command prompt so it switches to c:\
and the cd sw as to where my shadow warrior games are kept in the folder and then for the game i was trying to open wanton destruction i just typed wanton.exe so it would look like this:
c:\sw\wanton.exe
i believe that's how it'd look

when I used dosbox i just mounted it the way it said in your instructions

i mounted it from d

and then it didn't appear as though the directory was switched so what I ended up doing was i tried to remount it and it said drive d: was already mounted

so I guess i hit 'mount d "d:\" -t' I believe was the whole command, god, maybe that wasn't it exactly i thought it was

then it said I had to hit c: to redirect the command to a folder in c:

that part confused me, but upon trying to remount to d: from there it said d: was already mounted so i just continued to direct to sw and then from there to open wanton.exe and then from there it told me the disk is not found and it's missing the level $dozer.map and all the games tell me that the disk is not found or that the game isn't ibm compatible because the original game isn't found etc.

the sound and video work fine with the original game, I can play the original game installed on my computer from the disk as long as the disk is in the drive

i guess that was harsh, i didn't mean to be so cut down about it

anyway i guess i was just trying to say i wouldn't want to waste my time trying to disrespect someone i'll probably never talk to

oh well, no harm intended

oh

i don't know everything about my operating system, such as the type of cpu i'm using

but what I do know:
actually I do know the processor my mistake it's

an x86 family 15 model 4 stepping 1 genuine intel

my computer is as follows:

microsoft windows xp

home edition

version 2002

service pack 3

dell dimension dim4700
intel(r)
pentium 4 cpu 2.80 ghz
2.79 ghz
504 mb ram
physical address extension

i'm currently using
31.4 gb out of 70 gb of space

thanks

SETUP:

Music device creative soundfont synth
Sound 8 voices, sample rate 8-bit, sample rate 22050 hz
Video resolution 640x480 8bpp
Input device is keyboard and mouse

i don't know if that helps

does anyone know if I can use the command prompt to figure out if mscdex is enabled?

thanks

this is what was in my autoexec.nt

"@echo off

REM AUTOEXEC.BAT is not used to initialize the MS-DOS environment.
REM AUTOEXEC.NT is used to initialize the MS-DOS environment unless a
REM different startup file is specified in an application's PIF.

REM Install CD ROM extensions
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\mscdexnt.exe

REM Install network redirector (load before dosx.exe)
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir

REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx

REM The following line enables Sound Blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM.
REM The command for setting the BLASTER environment is as follows:
REM SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330
REM where:
REM A specifies the sound blaster's base I/O port
REM I specifies the interrupt request line
REM D specifies the 8-bit DMA channel
REM P specifies the MPU-401 base I/O port
REM T specifies the type of sound blaster card
REM 1 - Sound Blaster 1.5
REM 2 - Sound Blaster Pro I
REM 3 - Sound Blaster 2.0
REM 4 - Sound Blaster Pro II
REM 6 - SOund Blaster 16/AWE 32/32/64
REM
REM The default value is A220 I5 D1 T3 and P330. If any of the switches is
REM left unspecified, the default value will be used. (NOTE, since all the
REM ports are virtualized, the information provided here does not have to
REM match the real hardware setting.) NTVDM supports Sound Blaster 2.0 only.
REM The T switch must be set to 3, if specified.
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3

REM To disable the sound blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM, specify an invalid
REM SB base I/O port address. For example:
REM SET BLASTER=A0"

does that help with anything?

Just for your education, there is fairly well-written text that can explain why you get hostile (actually exasperated) responses. You can find it here: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html.

Best wishes,
Oscar

oh well i tried

i can see i'm probably not going to get this answered since i see where this is going, but i posted what was asked and went through some of the steps and found out a few things and came close, if i hit from the command prompt:
c:\cd i386
c:\i386\mscdexnt

the command goes through, although i don't know what that does, so my mscdex isn't entirely unfunctional

thanks a lot for the advice from the people who gave it, it goes a long ways

i'll just stop this here before this turns into a forum argument

peace

one last chance.
so you have to decide whether you want to use DOSBox or the command prompt. Either way get rid of whatever you have installed of Shadow Warrior on your computer.
Then for DOSBox follow MiniMax' third post in this thread:

Read my 60 Seconds Guide 60 seconds guide to getting your game to run in DOSBox to DOSBox (and don't just read it - follow it too).

If that doesn't help, come back with details on how you mounted your C and D drives, how you did the install, how you configured sound, music etc.

Reading the aptly named README file will be a good idea too.

And follow it to the letter!!! And then report back on which step you fail. And report back PRECISELY (again read what MiniMax told you to report back).
We need you to be precise. You are right, you've tried but you haven't tried hard enough and your information was close to useless before since it lacked preciseness.

The other way to use the command prompt (again, this is mostly useless, since you won't have sound/music):
in Explorer go to your CD drive and double click on install.exe or setup.exe and set the game up on your computer (no need for the command prompt, really). It should install the game to your computer, you choose where and then you should be able to start the game from that location.
If you try this way before the dosbox way, delete the game from your computer again. It will NOT work in Dosbox if you use the installation from this step.

Now to the behaviour remarks:

in every forum i go to I always get the same response, that I am somehow disrespecting the members etc. etc. etc.

Well, either everyone in every forum is wrong or maybe there is something wrong with your behaviour. Your online life will be much easier if you try to reflect on your behaviour and maybe you'll see where you go wrong.

i don't have the time to go online and try and take time away from what i'm doing to get into some "battle" in a reply to some topic, there isn't enough trade of communication here to really display any type of disrespect, we'll never meet each other, or hear each others voices, right now you people are no doubt watching t.v., or hanging out with your freinds or girlfreinds, or are at work and probably not even barely thinking about what I am writing right now, this whole computer world is such an insignificant part of life that isn't even real, these are just words on a monitor

We are real people that try to help people here. But yes, we "don't have the time to go online and try and take time away from what i'm doing to get into some "battle" in a reply to some topic" either, so to make it quick it would be helpful if you'd follow advice.
Because, back on topic, we all have a real good idea what is going wrong on your side but we can't help you, if you resist us all the time.

alright, thanks for the advice

if I choose, i'll choose dosbox

and i'll rewrite the steps i guess(i said i got lost after I mounted d:)

one thing though

deleting all the shadow warrior files is difficult since i installed the game and the shareware before i installed the game

on the other hand, you do realize i'm not trying to install and play the original shadow warrior, right? i have no problem playing that, i'm trying to play the add-ons wanton destruction, lo nukem

upon realizing this do you still want me to erase and reinstall the entire shareware, registered version game?

i'll do it but it'll be difficult to reinstall(not difficult but just not something i wanted to do)

for dosbox use you have to install both Sahdow Warrior and the add-ons again. You can keep your installed version on your computer just don't use it when you go the dosbox way.
And you installed the game AND the shareware version? why that?
You need just the full version.

and i'll rewrite the steps i guess(i said i got lost after I mounted d

that is what I'm talking about, be more precise, give us your exact mountings (what you typed in Dosbox) and what Dosbox "replied" for each command.

ok

so to reanswer the question

with dosbox i mounted with:

mount d "d:\" -t cdrom

then i hit d:

but since the game is already installed

i mounted like this

mount c c:\

then I hit c:

then I hit cd sw

then i hit sw.exe

this works fine

my wanton destruction game is in the same folder

if I hit wanton.exe instead of sw.exe in this order of the steps i get a message saying it's missing level $dozer.map

if you still want i'll delete everything and reinstall it but i really doubt that's going to help me at all

According to this post (http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=32834) that file is part of the original game. Does the file exist somewhere in your C:\SW folder?