Well, assuming that you bought an actual retail cd and not a burned copy, you might have the macintosh version. Does it say on the disk or package what the system requirements are?

Yes, you probably have the Mac version of the game.

Yes, I considered that as well, however, the pamphlet it came with (the retail pamphlet) has instructions for Macintosh and Windows installation (windows is listed first). Do you think I should just buy another copy from another seller? I do know that most people don't have trouble with this game for XP. Thank you very much for replying to this query!

Ehm... I'm no Mac user, but is there really a CD-ROM file format on the Mac that can't be read by PC's?! I always thought even Mac CD's would follow standards, like ISO9660, Joliet, etc. I know about HFS/HFS+, but these only apply to hd's AFAIK.

AdventureMan: you could try to use the "media-info"-function of CD-burning software (Nero, CloneCD) on the disc. That might give you more info on the format of the CD. Is the CD a "real" (silver) one, or maybe a CDR?

Mac CDs cannot normally be read on PCs. I'm 99.9 % sure that AdventureMan has a Mac version. Mac versions of the game are fairly common.

One way to tell for sure if your CD is a hybrid (has 2 file systems: WIN & MAC) is using IsoBuster.

It's the only way for your PC to read any MAC information that your CD may contain. Try it out...

It's the only way for your PC to read any MAC information that your CD

There are others but it is the quickest way to verify which system is on the CD...

Dominus wrote:

There are others but it is the quickes way to verify which system is on the CD...

Really? Do share some of you knowledge, Dominus, as besides the method I wrote above, the only way I thought possible would be by having a real MAC machine or an emulated one...

Oh, and BTW AdventureMan, one thing comes to mind now, about the trouble reading the CD... Either the CD's file system is damaged or there is no "compatible" file system present on your CD to match the one on your current OS.

Still, check the CD as mentioned above.

Really? Do share some of you knowledge, Dominus, as besides the method I wrote above, the only way I thought possible would be by having a real MAC machine or an emulated one...

hmm, quite condescending, huh? google it yourself. I used one to read an old CD-R of my girlfriend on which she had photos that she needed on my PC. Isobuster did not work correctly at that time, I could see what was on it but not extract it.

hmm, quite condescending, huh? google it yourself.

Hold your fire, Dominus, I was just trying to be nice... 😉 *waves white flag* 😀

Since I never had any MAC experience whatsoever I thought your previous experience (and acquired knowledge) would be of help in this thread... Forgive me if I made a wrong assumption.

ok *offering my hand*, sorry, understood you wrong then. I used UltraIso as far as a quick search produced. Not quite sure, though.
But as I wrote Isobuster is definitely good enough to find out in which format the CD is.

*Shakes hand firmly* 😀

No worries, friend. Written comunication is sometimes a major PITA. You may notice from some of my posts (ok, almost all of them 🤣 ) that I struggle must of the time just to write my idea clearly in a foreign language, and I end up writing huge paragraphs and so on. I know what it feels like.

Regarding UltraISO, I never had any success reading a MAC filesystem on my PC. Strange... Isobuster did allowed me to read that MAC data, but not extracting it (it has a specific extraction option, but didn't work, AFAICT).

*** EDIT ***

Just noticed this

Can a Macintosh CD-ROM be Read on a PC? No. Better said, not without some special software, like our MacDisk. It can happen that […]
Show full quote

Can a Macintosh CD-ROM be Read on a PC?
No. Better said, not without some special software, like our MacDisk.
It can happen that you get a CD-ROM from a partner without knowing whether it is an ISO 9660 CD-ROM or something else. How to ascertain the very nature of the disk?
Under Windows 95 and NT 4, when you try to open a HFS CD-ROM in the Explorer, you get the message:

A device connected to the system doesn't work correctly.

(This is a translation back to English of the French message, but you should get it right).
Under Windows 98 and higher, the behavior of the operating system may lead to misunderstandings, because it displays an empty window and even gives it a fake title of 'CD'.
It can also happen that the Macintosh user burnt a CD-ROM as an ISO partition with Apple and/or Joliet extensions. In this case, you can get crippled filenames without real extensions and have no clue about the real contents of the files. See our page on such ISO volumes produced on a Macintosh.
In all those situations, your best bet is to try our MacDisk, which can manage all kinds of disks produced on the Macintosh.

Also noticed this

How can I read a Macintosh CD on a PC? (...) MacDisk - Capable of reading all Apple Macintosh disks on PC computers. In addition […]
Show full quote

How can I read a Macintosh CD on a PC?
(...)
MacDisk - Capable of reading all Apple Macintosh disks on PC computers. In addition, the company offers other solutions such as the ability to create Macintosh CD-ROM images on your PC computer.
TransMac - Enables PC users to read all Apple Macintosh disks on their computer.

I'm in for a busy weekend schedule 🙁 but if I can squeeze some time out of it, I'll give these 2 a run.

Actually, HFVExplorer would be the way to go. It offers more flexibility than ISOBuster does in some situations, as I recall. (At least, it's been recommended for extracting the data from Macintosh versions of Lucasarts games for usage with ScummVM.)

Of course, if you actually intend to do something with this version of GK2 on your PC, you'll need to use a Macintosh emulator - which of course would also be able to read Macintosh CDs.