First two things that come to mind:
- use same mountings for c and d when you install and play
- make a cue/bin image of the CD and use imgmount in dosbox instead of mount. Especially when the game has audio tracks I found OS X not mounting CDs correctly (for both data AND audio tracks). This may be for linux, too.
For making bin/cue images I found it's best to use the demo version of alcohol 120% which is a Windows program. Not sure whether there is finally a good linux tool for this

The first thing we need to know is are you using a legal copy of the game or did you download it from an abandonware site or torrent? Only support for legally obtained copies of games is provided here.

> use same mountings for c and d when you install and play

Okay. To expand that - do you mean that I should try re-installing with all the different options I list above? Because I tried the initial play immediately after install and it didn't work, so that's why I tried everything else. I'm willing to do that, but it'll take a while so I want to make sure I understand.

> make a cue/bin image of the CD and use imgmount in dosbox instead of mount. Especially when the game has audio tracks I found OS X not mounting CDs correctly (for both data AND audio tracks). This may be for linux, too.

I forgot to mention this, but I also tried using dd to create an image and using imgmount, but that didn't work either. Do you suppose that Alcohol will do something different?

> The first thing we need to know is are you using a legal copy of the game or did you download it from an abandonware site or torrent? Only support for legally obtained copies of games is provided here.

This is a CDROM that I ordered clear back in 1996 when the game was brand new. I don't have the receipt any more after nearly 20 years, but I can take a photo of the original CDROM and post it if you want. Otherwise I don't know how to prove that I'm not just blowing smoke. But I genuinely purchased it.

In fact, on a side-note - I have the original floppy disk with the patch and my home computer doesn't have a floppy. I'm hoping I can copy the files from floppy to a USB drive at work and bring it home. I have an ancient computer there with a floppy drive that's running Debian as a headless GIT repository...

fmarker wrote:

This is a CDROM that I ordered clear back in 1996 when the game was brand new. I don't have the receipt any more after nearly 20 years, but I can take a photo of the original CDROM and post it if you want. Otherwise I don't know how to prove that I'm not just blowing smoke. But I genuinely purchased it.

With same mountings, I meant that when you install it should be the same mountings for c and d. if you pass extra stuff (label, ioctl...) it doesn't matter AFAIK.

Try with a "proper" bin/cue image. I think this might handle audio tracks (if there are) properly. dd might only handle the data.

From your initial message, I wasn't worried about whether your cd is legit 😀

@Sliderider: there are tell tale signs of people coming here with abandonware. When someone writes in his first post that he is using a CD, you can assume (at about 90%) that this person is using a legit copy. Don't accuse right away...

I'll have to do some Googling to see how to get a proper bin/cue image in Linux. Otherwise I'll have to wait until tomorrow when I can try this in a virtual machine running XP. I don't have Windows at home*.

I'll tinker some more with the mountings before that time, and if I get it to work, I'll post back. Thanks for the suggestions!!

* Actually, I have install disks for Win95, Win98, and Win2000. But I don't have it installed anywhere.

[EDIT] Also, I have no mercy for pirates. So I don't mind being challenged on this in the least. 😀

One other possibility to consider is that the deprecation of the use of /media for removable media in Linux distros (generally) is causing you grief. When doing some testing for Myth II 1.8 developers recently, I discovered that openSUSE devs were no longer automounting an inserted CD-ROM to /media/CDROM as they had for many previous versions. Here is part of a post I made in a private forum that gives some notion of how big the problem is:

I'm afraid that we (Linux users and developers) are well and truly screwed on this issue for the foreseeable future. The change […]
Show full quote

I'm afraid that we (Linux users and developers) are well and truly screwed on this issue for the foreseeable future. The change (deprecation really) in the use of /media for removable media is not restricted to openSUSE as users of other distributions are howling about the change as well, and distro developers are all pointing "upstream" saying that they are not to blame for the change. For example, I have seen /posts/threads/pages indicating that this issue is affecting distros such as Arch Linux, Fedora, etc. Here are a few examples:

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-techni … e-12-3-x64.html (openSUSE 12.3)
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144883 (Arch Linux)
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/64152 … nd-automounting (Fedora)

The fundamental problem with the change is that different distributions apparently use different mount points for removable media as you can see from the examples and discussions in the URLs above. OpenSUSE apparently had a different mechanism just going from Version 12.2 to Version 12.3. In openSUSE 12.3, I can change directories to the following and see the (auto)mounted Myth II CD:

/var/run/media/stmorgan/MYTH2
/run/media/stmorgan/MYTH2

But there is nothing in my /home/stmorgan directory to even hint at the fact that the Myth II CD is mounted in association with my user id. However, Dolphin (the file manager) does show the mounted CD-ROM as an accessible device.

Other distros are apt to put it someplace else, and until the dust settles on this issue, I wouldn't bet money that a particular distribution will be consistent in where removable media is mounted from one version to the next.

You might want to see exactly where your Shattered Steel CD-ROM file system is actually getting (auto)mounted when you simply put the disc in the machine. You may be very surprised at the result.

There may be a convergence among Linux distros in the future about where to automount removable media, but right now it is a huge mess.

akula65 wrote:

One other possibility to consider is that the deprecation of the use of /media for removable media in Linux distros (generally) is causing you grief...

I'm thinking that's not my problem, but thanks. I typed "mount" with no arguments after popping in the CDROM and got this response:

/dev/sr0 on /media/cdrom0 type iso9660 (ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,user=fmarker)

So I'm pretty sure I'm safe on /media/cdrom0 for the time being. 😅

[EDIT] I'm going to see if I can create a good image of the disk at lunch-time tomorrow at work in my XP VM (where I can temporarily add software and then roll it back).

I'll definitely check in tomorrow. Keep the suggestions rolling, but I might not answer again until then.

Just to be sure: you are mounting some other directory as drive C along with the CD-ROM as drive D, right?

I looked at the GOG.com version and they have a cue/bin image that holds audio tracks (though their .cue is called .inst and the .bin .gog 😀).
So I guess once you have a correct bin/cue image you should be sorted.
A quick search found me some linux instructions to create an image via cdrdao, btw.

Status:
I tried using the Alcohol 120% trial in an XP VM, and it crashes instantly. I bet it needs to talk directly to the hardware. I tried enabling and disabling "Passthrough", but it didn't help.

Just to be sure: you are mounting some other directory as drive C along with the CD-ROM as drive D, right?

Yes.

I looked at the GOG.com version and they have a cue/bin image that holds audio tracks (though their .cue is called .inst and the .bin .gog Happy).
So I guess once you have a correct bin/cue image you should be sorted.
A quick search found me some linux instructions to create an image via cdrdao, btw.

I saw some instructions for that as well, but on my computer it pauses for way too long on one of the tracks. However, I discovered something that tells me that I need to try those instructions at on another day at lunch. When I popped the disk into my Debian box at work, it mounted it twice - once was "SSTEEL", and the other was labeled "MUSIC CD".

I'm thinking you (@Dominus) are correct about needing an image. And there's something about mounting at home that doesn't work. I definitely have something about my home computer - which has been upgraded at least twice - versus my fresh install at work. I'll try it at lunch tomorrow.

Thanks for the help. I'll post back tomorrow. 😀

I have to admit, I'm starting to get discouraged. I burned the image from disk, but I still get the message asking to insert the disk. There is one thing though - cdrdao has a ton of options, so possibly I didn't do it correctly. I'm going to wait until the weekend when I have more time, then I'm going to read the cdrdao man page carefully. Maybe I missed something. 🙁

Hi!

You might, or not, find my videos useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_cc838XPm4&li … zgbVqyX&index=1

They are part of a playlist and I show how to create CDs from GOG.com games to install on a real PC. The "toughest" ones are games that come with bin/cue files and have audio files as ogg or mp3. You need to create a mixed mode CD and this is shown in the fourth video.

Maybe it has something useful in there to help you out?

When you mount the image in dosbox HOW do you mount it?
You need to imgmount the cue file, not the bin. Also you can copy/paste the cue file (it's just a text file with the TOC) for me to compare with the one from GOG. Or you buy the game again from GOG 😉

SUCCESS!!

[ rant mode ]
I love the GNU tool chain, and I really love using GNU/Linux, but I swear sometimes it can be exasperating. As I thought in my previous post, I was simply doing it wrong. The trick was that I was letting cdrdao create the default image data.bin and then renaming SSTEEL.bin it afterward. When I created the cue file, it pointed to data.bin even though it no longer existed. Without reading the instructions, I tried mounting SSTEEL.cue (which pointed to a non-existent data.bin) and that failed. So I thought "that must be wrong", and tried mounting the bin file. It mounted (with a bit of thrashing), but it had the same error as my original problem.

Would it have killed the CDRDAO folks to include a few common usage scenario examples?
[ / rant mode ]

Like with so many other problems in life, the answer is to read instructions. "You need to imgmount the cue file" - thanks for that. That was what tipped me over the edge into understanding...

The basic steps are to create an image file and matching toc file. Create a cue file from the toc. Mount the cue file. Play from there. It was easy once I understood. 😀

Here are my exact steps - keeping in mind that my CDROM is /dev/sr0 and mounts to /media/cdrom0 and that I'm putting the game files into /home/fmarker/Games/dosbox/ss/cdrive and the image is at /home/fmarker/Games/dosbox/ss/STEEL.bin and .cue :

- From bash
$ cd /home/fmarker/Games/dosbox/ss
$ mkdir cdrive
$ sudo umount /media/cdrom0
$ cdrdao read-cd --device /dev/sr0 --datafile SSTEEL.bin SSTEEL.toc
$ toc2cue SSTEEL.toc SSTEEL.cue

- From dosbox
Z:\> mount c /home/fmarker/Games/dosbox/ss/cdrive
Z:\> imgmount d /home/fmarker/Games/dosbox/ss/SSTEEL.cue -t iso

From there I run the game normally and it works!

@Mau1wurf1977 The videos didn't help this time - but I'm definitely interested. Thanks for the link.

@Dominus "Or you buy the game again from GOG". I thought about that, but I wanted to at least have one success before I started throwing money at the problem. I know the games are inexpensive. But it was hard for me to justify spending money on something I already have when the problem was that it didn't work. It wouldn't have been a huge loss, but what if I bought the game and still couldn't figure out how to get it to work? One copy I can't use is bad enough, two copies would be truly annoying.

I can definitely see myself at GOG buying other stuff that I missed first time around though! Especially now that I'm confident about getting it to work. 😀

Yeah! Success!!!
Wrong bin name/path pointer in the cue is a common problem 😉
On Windows it often points at the full path of the bin which is also error prone 😉