Is it a disc based install?

Are you using a "clean" Windows 98 SE install, or have you applied any third party patches or service packs?

You could try Total Uninstall (nab it from the Essential Utilities-section of my guide for Win 95) to try and track the changes that the UT installer makes to see if any of the modified files or registry entries point you in the direction of the cause.

giantclam wrote on 2024-01-21, 21:42:

Is it a disc based install?

Yes, the game installs fine from the CD and so long as I don’t reboot the machine I can still use the CDRom drive and play the game. But once I reboot the drive is gone.

leonardo wrote on 2024-01-21, 22:10:

Are you using a "clean" Windows 98 SE install, or have you applied any third party patches or service packs?

You could try Total Uninstall (nab it from the Essential Utilities-section of my guide for Win 95) to try and track the changes that the UT installer makes to see if any of the modified files or registry entries point you in the direction of the cause.

It’s a clean install of Windows 98 SE (no windows patches) but I have installed nvidia drivers (GeForce2 MX), sound drivers and VIA chipset drivers.

That’s interesting about using Total Uninstall, if I get a minute I might give that a go, see if I can solve the mystery.

I was thinking about the possibility of the installer changing something in the registry, what kind of makes this even stranger though is that simply uninstalling the game brings the drive back, I’d have thought that if the installer borked something in the registry then the damage would be more permanent?

Get the official no-cd patch...

Can't remember if UT used safedisc or not but that would do it. I want to say yes since I want to say I remember the thumbnail image used on load that implies copy protection but it's been decades since I ran UT uncracked so could be misremembering:
Re: So how big a deal were Safedisc and SecuROM on XP Installations?

Depends on version iirc ~ I think GOTY edition used secuROM

Retail UT v400 did use safedisc. it wasn't until many versions later (i.e. 436) that it was removed

So if I grab as many patches as I can for it, will installing them remove safedisc?

leileilol wrote on 2024-01-22, 07:57:

Retail UT v400 did use safedisc. it wasn't until many versions later (i.e. 436) that it was removed

Is this a regional thing? My UT CDs have never had any kind of restrictions (v400) - the game installs and will run fully without a disc in the drive. No hacks or patches required. Of course I still update to 436 for all the other improvements, but I don't understand all the back and forth here about having to use a No-CD solution.

An update:

I think I've fixed the issue, though I never did quite get to the bottom of it.

When setting up this machine I decided to go for an SSD instead of a HDD by using an IDE to SATA adapter card. I had this in the primary port on the same IDE cable as the CDROM which was set to slave (no jumper options on the adapter card to set it to primary but it must be like that by default). I then had an IDE to SD Card adapter plugged in to the secondary IDE port so that I could more easily transfer files to the machine (I don't want to connect it to my network).

I've since removed the SD Card adapter and plugged the CDROM into the secondary port and set to master. Then re-installed Windows. This seems to have "fixed" it, I can now install Unreal Tournament and not loose the drive.

Feels like a cop-out though since I never really got to the bottom of why the previous setup broke with certain games installed. But it's working now I guess.

Incidentally I found the exact same issue with The Sims Deluxe Edition. Which would also cause the CD drive to disappear, uninstalling alone wouldn't bring it back in this case as the uninstaller doesn't delete all the files. However deleting the Maxis folder entirely would work and the drive would return after a reboot.

Weird!