An example of installing mutliple DOS floppy images to an HD image:

1imgmount c hd40.img -t hdd -size 512,17,6,820
2boot dos5_1.ima dos5_2.ima

And an example of installing multiple game floppy images to an HD image:

1imgmount c hd40.img -t hdd -size 512,17,6,820
2boot dos5_1.ima game1.ima game2.ima game3.ima game4.ima

The trick, if you want to call it that, is using the BOOT command, because it supports multiple floppies. The first floppy image in the list must be a system disk (bootable), and after booting you can press Ctrl-F4 to switch the selected image.

Which games are you unable to install with DOSBox's emulated DOS? There are a few that are known to be problematic, but have workarounds.

instead of the FreeDOS and the custom utilities that are found on the Z: drive.

There is no freedos in DOSBox, not a single line.

I'm sorry, I thought that I read somewhere that the underlying DOS for DOSBox was a derivative of FreeDOS. If not FreeDOS, were the underlying DOS structures coded from scratch?

If not FreeDOS, were the underlying DOS structures coded from scratch?

Yes, but the target is to emulate dos at a much higher level than msdos/freedos (so mostly doing what "int21 does").

A boot disk, even a 1.44MB one, is not enough to contain the entirety of MS-DOS 5. I have heard of some weird installs that use the less common commands like ASSIGN, JOIN or SUBST, maybe even SETVER. Even so, a PATH command in AUTOEXEC.BAT directed to C:\DOS should be enough to deal with a pesky install.

As far as games go, virtually all Sierra 16-color games that use a monochrome text box installer (KQ4, QFG2, etc.) will hang when trying to copy the resource files to a hard drive.

Prince of Persia 1.1 and SimCity will disallow input in their install programs.

For the Sierra installs, perhaps try a build of clean SVN source, because some issues with them have been resolved.

Great Hierophant wrote:

As far as games go, virtually all Sierra 16-color games that use a monochrome text box installer (KQ4, QFG2, etc.) will hang when trying to copy the resource files to a hard drive.

Curious, I assume that this must be only with images. I have never noticed this behavior with the SCI0 installers with 0.74, at least not when mounting folders for the floppy drive. I assume that this must be only with images and I can't think of many reasons to to do floppy images with the SCI games.

I checked and apologize, the issue with the Sierra installs is specific to yhkwong's SVN builds, the game copies itself to the hard drive correctly and fully in stock .74. For yhkwong's SVN builds, it only works if I boot to MS-DOS.

I have disk images of many, many Sierra games, and I would like them to work naturally when the disks themselves fail, as they must eventually. SCI0 games simply copy all their files to disks, but its easier to let the install program do it.

Off the subject, but I simply archive my disks as ZIPs of just the contents of the disks in their original layout. If the disks have a label, I will give the ZIP the same name as the label. With Sierra games all of the extra information contained in an image is usually irrelevant. In that case of the AGI games with the CPC protection, you can't make a usable image, anyway. Even the original disks won't work under modern Windows with these games in DOSBox.

The alternative to using the Boot command is to use "Virtual Floppy Drive", a Windows program that will mount floppy images. Specifically, you'd use VFD to mount the image, mount the virtual floppy drive in DOSBox, and swap in the new image with VFD when needed.

As for Sierra's games, aren't those all taken care of with the updated Sierra installers? Not the most elegant solution, perhaps, but an effective one:
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/New … Installers.html

That's what collector maintains 😀

But admittedly the CPC protection is a beast for any sort of backup, there was pretty much a single
application back then that claimed to support bad sector copying but doubt they could copy
the special sector layout.

Jorpho wrote:

The alternative to using the Boot command is to use "Virtual Floppy Drive"

VFD drives are mounted as local drives, thus not a viable alternative when booting.

collector wrote:

Off the subject, but I simply archive my disks as ZIPs of just the contents of the disks in their original layout. If the disks have a label, I will give the ZIP the same name as the label. With Sierra games all of the extra information contained in an image is usually irrelevant. In that case of the AGI games with the CPC protection, you can't make a usable image, anyway. Even the original disks won't work under modern Windows with these games in DOSBox.

That is the other option, but I prefer to make a disk image, which as an ordinary sector dump will retain the disk label and also keep the time and date information for the original files, which is useful.

The original AGI disks won't work under Windows 95 or better according to Microsoft due to the copy protection, and they aren't alone :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/132994
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/132995
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/132996

I would suggest that back in the day most people did what Sierra would do on its Collection CDs, crack the games to decrypt an unprotected executable. Works wonders for any SuperLok protected game.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

The alternative to using the Boot command is to use "Virtual Floppy Drive"

VFD drives are mounted as local drives, thus not a viable alternative when booting.

Well, yes, but if one is only booting in order to support multiple floppy images, then booting would be unnecessary, right?

Jorpho wrote:

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

The alternative to using the Boot command is to use "Virtual Floppy Drive"

VFD drives are mounted as local drives, thus not a viable alternative when booting.

Well, yes, but if one is only booting in order to support multiple floppy images, then booting would be unnecessary, right?

Of course, but what of it? This thread is about how to use multiple floppies when booting DOS, in case its title and initial post escaped your notice.

Jorpho wrote:

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

The alternative to using the Boot command is to use "Virtual Floppy Drive"

VFD drives are mounted as local drives, thus not a viable alternative when booting.

Well, yes, but if one is only booting in order to support multiple floppy images, then booting would be unnecessary, right?

Booting is only necessary if the floppy will not work or install with native DOSBox. In addition to the Sierra SCI0 games, the Dynamix installation programs used for such games as Willy Beamish and Stellar 7 don't work with DOSBox. So for those games, to install them onto a hard drive the official way, you need to boot from a MS-DOS floppy and install them onto an hard drive image.

The installers for Willy and some other Dynamix titles will fail under DOSBox, even when either a real floppy drive or folder is mounted in DOSBox, too. It keeps asking for disk 1. The disks have no label. I seem to remember that they fail under the NTVDM as well, but cannot test as I have x64.

The Willy Beamish and Rise of the Dragon installers use an unusual approach for checking disk volume labels that isn't supported in DOSBox's emulated DOS. The issue was reported to the devs, but I'm guessing it isn't a priority given that you can manually copy all files from the floppy disks to the hard drive to install the games in question.