Game CDs to DVD conversion?

[Kyle2k]

:cool: Hi everybody

My goal is to discuss here how to put multiple game CDs in a single DVD. In my opinion, forcing a backup using Daemon Tools (although is a great program), is not exactly my first choice. I think it would be great if we could create a single game DVD from multiple-cds games, with autorun and no more CD swaps during the install procedure :rolleyes: .

I had success w/ a few games ;) :

thief: deadly shadows
farcry, painkiller, doom3 (easy, as you all know)
XIII
diabloII & expansion
Star Wars KOTOR

...but i had no success with :( :

emperor: battle for dune (only with daemon tools)
the suffering
phantasmagoria I (even with daemon tools...)

Phantasmagoria is a 7-cd game, begging for a DVD backup (saves a lot of storage space!). Daemon Tools does not seems to work in this particular case, because at the end of the first chapter (CD#1), the game asks for the second CD.

So, if you have experience with a particular game, making a total DVD conversion, please post here your story!

Thank you all
Kyle2k ;)

[union jack]

kaisai tools also require some ms file 23 meg anyway u can obliterate there install just name all disk CD1 AND LABEL YA DISK CD1 BURN THE GAME IT NOW INSTALLS FROM DVD WHHHHHO HOOOOOOOOO FAN****INGTASTIC
I KNOW IT WORKS


IF IT DOSNT WORK FOR U BUY A GAME CUBE OR A MEGADRIVE

[union jack]

I Believe The Dune Game Has Same Cd File Namez On Each Cd Rename Then They Wont Play Hmmm
Do A Full Install Tehn Zip Or Ace It (prob A Install All Feature)

[Grumpy]

I wonder if it would be possible to put up to 6 different games onto 1 DVD? It sounds feasable to make seperate folders for each game, then make a autorun file that opens a html page on the DVD! On this html page could be 6 different links, to take you to the setup file of each different game! Simaliar to the magazine disks! So what does everyone think? Doesnt sound to hard now, Does it? I think :)
And for the record have successfully converted to DVD:
Battlefield Vietnam
Colin Mcrae 04
Doom3
Farcry
Mafia
Manhunt
Max Payne 2
NFS Underground (This one does ask for CD at the end but cancel message and game still works!)
Rome-Total War
Splinter Cell-Pandora's Tommorrow
Tomb Raider-The Angel of Darkness
True Crimes
Ut2004

And have write ups on how to do: (As I dont have these games, just typed them out for someone else)
NHL 2005
EURO 2004

So send me a PM if you want a Readme Doc sent! ;)

[Kyle2k]

kaisai tools also require some ms file 23 meg anyway u can obliterate there install just name all disk CD1 AND LABEL YA DISK CD1 BURN THE GAME IT NOW INSTALLS FROM DVD WHHHHHO HOOOOOOOOO FAN****INGTASTIC
I KNOW IT WORKS


IF IT DOSNT WORK FOR U BUY A GAME CUBE OR A MEGADRIVE


Hey Union, my english is not THAT good...

can you repeat in a way i can understand? seems to me you have a point.

***

Grumpy, i was wondering the same... multiple different games to a single DVD...can you explain how? (i did not understand the html thing...) my e-mail: aromero2000**********com

Thank you again
Kyle2k (your brazilian friend)

[The One]

Putting the CDs into different folders with an autorun probably wouldn't work for most games unless they are cracked and don't require any data from the disc during gameplay. Also during install you'll keep getting a prompt for the next CD and you'll have to select the folder. Most games will put the install source path somewhere and be something like E:\Setup. If you put the CDs in seperate folders, the game will look for the game in say, E:\CD1 but the 4th CD is in E:\CD4. If you are putting different games all on one DVD but all files from each games CDs are in this folder it will probably work except in rare cases where the setup must be run from the root of the drive which I have ran across before. The game may also need to be crack even if there is no protection because some games will only look for the game files on the root of the install drive.

These are the games that I have coverted to DVD
Baldurs Gate 1
Hitman Contracts
Painkiller
FarCry
KOTOR
Enter the Matrix
Commandos 3
LOTR ROTK
UT 2k4
Splinter Cell

And maybe some others that I don't remember

I'm looking at Emperor Battle for Dune and it looks like it cannot be converted to 1 DVD because the movie files from each CD have the same names. This means they will overwrite each other and I'm sure there is no way to change the path that the game looks for the movies. I'm sure it just looks for the movies in the setup source path.

[Asimov]

Hey Kyle2k how did you manage to make a working copy of XIII.

I tried it by copying all the files to the same directory and burning. It installs fine but the crack still requires that you insert the cds as you play the game. So its kind of useless.

How did you get around it.

[Zokkke]

;) You can convert even every Game on multiple CD's to DVD...
You have to load a crack and copy the content of every cd in one folder, without any subfolder...
you have to burn it with tools like nero or anything else you can make your own compilations
and when you now install the game from cd it don't will ask for any cd-changing!
You don't have to work with any image filez or virtual drives...

But my question is how i can convert any dvd to multiple cd's(without any splitting file)?
Zmokkke

:cool: Hi everybody

My goal is to discuss here how to put multiple game CDs in a single DVD. In my opinion, forcing a backup using Daemon Tools (although is a great program), is not exactly my first choice. I think it would be great if we could create a single game DVD from multiple-cds games, with autorun and no more CD swaps during the install procedure :rolleyes: .

I had success w/ a few games ;) :

thief: deadly shadows
farcry, painkiller, doom3 (easy, as you all know)
XIII
diabloII & expansion
Star Wars KOTOR

...but i had no success with :( :

emperor: battle for dune (only with daemon tools)
the suffering
phantasmagoria I (even with daemon tools...)

Phantasmagoria is a 7-cd game, begging for a DVD backup (saves a lot of storage space!). Daemon Tools does not seems to work in this particular case, because at the end of the first chapter (CD#1), the game asks for the second CD.

So, if you have experience with a particular game, making a total DVD conversion, please post here your story!

Thank you all
Kyle2k ;)

[Grumpy]

@ Kyle2k
I wasnt actually saying I knew how to do this, I was just wondering if it would be possible? Some Magazine discs give you Demos to several games and when you first insert these discs a HTML (web page on disc) opens with a list of demos, you just click on the link to install the demo, so basically the link is linked to the setup.exe (or install.exe whatever it not important).

@ TheOne
Yes all valid points you have made here. If I were to even try this I would only try it with single disc games as yes multiple Cd's from the same game would actually make it harder, like you have said. I was just thinking out aloud. :) Some games with multiple cds would work but definately not all. For example it would be nice to say put all the Battlefield games (1942, Road to Rome, Secret Weapon) on the one DVD. but this wouldnt be possible to do as easy as BF Vietnam. And as BF Vietnam is already 3 CD's to 1 DVD you wouldnt try to add it with all the others. ;) Thanks very much for you input it helps to keep us all thinking. :)

[VanTokkern]

Creating a DVD with multiple games is a fairly easy process.
All you need to do is copy all the files from CD1, and ONLY the installation files from the other CDs into a directory, do this for every game you wish to add. The autorun files from the other CDs might mix up if you copy them over the one from CD1. This was the case with Rome: Total War.
Don't put them all in the same folder. Nearly all games name their installer setup.exe and you can't have two files with the same name in one folder. Renaming it is no problem, BUT; setup.exe gets it's information from setup.ini, renaming this will start causing problems. You should just give every game it's own folder on the cd. The installation will look for files in the home directory; it won't browse the CD. (Example: When installing Warhammer from "D:\Warhammer\setup.exe" it will look for files in "D:\Warhammer", not "D:\" )
One important thing; You need to alter the msi files IF the game uses one. If you want to know how to do this read carefully;

1) Go here (http://www.masaieditor.com/html/editor_home.php) and install this application.
2) Right click on the msi installation file you wish to edit, and click "Edit with MaSaI Editor".
3) Go to the tab "All Tables" and choose the folder "Media".
There's only one table you need to alter here: "VolumeLabel".
You can change this to whatever you want it to be, just make sure you name it exactly (case sensitive) as you wish the name the DVD itself. If you're adding more than one game on the DVD name it something like "GameDVD". You could also alter DiskPrompt but it is not required.
4) Save it somewhere, make sure it's easy so you can find it back.
5) Replace the old msi, with the one you just altered.

You need to follow these steps for EVERY game you add to the DVD which uses a msi installer. If it doesn't use a msi installer you don't need to do anything.

EDIT: The above is incorrect. The things I described in here only apply to games with an msi installer. Other installation methods (sometimes) have other ways of checking the cds.

Creating a html autorun does not work. Your cd-rom does not know what to do with this file. I do know how to get an autorun going but don't know how to create one :p, im no programmer, so can't help you there.
Hope this was of any help to you people, if you have any questions just ask.

[Grumpy]

Creating a html autorun does not work. Your cd-rom does not know what to do with this file. I do know how to get an autorun going but don't know how to create one , im no programmer, so can't help you there.

Um like this:

Make an Autorun CD-ROM

To make a CD run a program automatically you use a file named autorun.inf you create the file autorun.inf in a text editor like Notepad. The file autorun.inf is than located on the CD's root directory. The first line of the file needs to say

[autorun]

add a second line with "open=" and the program desired. For example an autorun.inf file like this

[autorun]
open=explorer.exe /n,/e,.

would make the CD open up Windows Explorer. Rather than launch an executable you can have Windows launch an html file, use the following for example

[autorun]
open=start.exe yourfilename.html

;)
I quite often make my own Auto starting software CD's but have never actually tried it with multiple games! I do believe that it could work using the HTML way but not actually sure? Thats why I asked. :)

[VanTokkern]

Thanks for that Grumpy, I'll try it right now, with my poor html skills :P I did not know what you just said. but it's worth the try. As I have no programming skills what-so-ever. If I manage to get it working I'll let you know. And as far as the multiple games on one DVD, games that are originally coded for multiple CDs, works like a charm ;)
I only need to get that autorun working now.

[VanTokkern]

Hah! Got it to work. Thanks to Warhammer which came with brilliant autorun files :D You can alter all the links, background, pretty much everything.
I can personally vouch adding multiple games, which come with more than one CD, will work perfectly fine on a DVD.
I don't have an answer yet to your problem Grumpy. I guess it should work fine if you can figure out a way to execute files with html. I, for one, don't know how to do this.

[Grumpy]

yeh sorry bout tht i relized the way i used to do it wont work in Xp ive just been testing it!
But this WILL open the HTML on the CD (between the lines but not the lines as well)
----------------------------------------------------
[autorun]
open=Games.html
icon=cd.ico

shellexecute=Games.html

----------------------------------------------------
Now just a bit more corrections on the html itself and I'm sure I can get this to work! :) Just need to brush up on my html :p

[VanTokkern]

Do you happen to know a program which lets you alter cab files? :rolleyes:

[Grumpy]

To open cab files? Cant remember off hand but I'm sure Ive read that on Fileforums! just a matter of where exactly?
Just found your answer thanks to 'ghosthacker' and Morglum007'. They say 'i6comp' can edit cab files, go here: http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?t=53790&highlight=orca
to read what they had to say ;)

[Grumpy]

Well i finally worked out how I did the HTML thingy! I posted the text needed to open the Html page from the cd about 3 posts back! If you set the page up correctly you will have links on your page that when clicked on will go straight to the appropriate games setup.exe. B4 the setup starts you will see the download message window about "files of this sort can be harmful' and you will have the choice to download, install, cancel etc! Just like when you go to download something from the Net. Obviously you choose the 'Install' button! Now this is a simple way of putting 6 maybe 7 different games onto the one DVD. :D Hope thats not to cofusing! ;)

[VanTokkern]

I have it all worked out mate, thanks tho ;)
Have a look at this:

http://members.home.nl/bljvtongeren/pics/autorun.JPG

I stole Warhammer's autorun files, which let you alter the autorun in any way possible, hope they don't mind!! :D

I named my DVD, containing DOOM3, Rome: Total War and Warhammer 40000 Dawn of War, GameDVD (lack of creativity :p ) and the links you see in the autorun screeny are all linked to the games' autorun files. I have re-installed every single one of them from the DVD, and they work fine. All I did was alter the VolumeLabels in the MSI file. Proving my point about the installer looking for the files in it's home directory.
Only one thing left till perfection; getting Dawn of Wars cracked exe into that damned cab file. I noticed you edited your post, I'll check it out when I get back from the movies, thanks again!! :D

[Luciel]

*bows to VanTokkern" veeeery nice.

[Grumpy]

Very cool!!!
Can you post the contents of the inf file

EDIT: Dont worry someone else just sent them to me and it appears I need more than just the Autorun.inf file! Will continue to make html the hard way if i want something to look like that! Buy hey that really looks fantastic!! I liiiike it!!
I was hoping the files from Warhammer would save me some time by not having to make the html file from the beginning.

[The One]

An excellent program which I have used for making my own autorun.exe programs is Autoplay Media Studio Pro from IndigRose http://www.indigorose.com/ams/index.php
This is a quite expensive program but you can find bargain prices....if you know what I mean

You can use CabPack
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/english.htm
to edit .cab files but you have to save as new cabs. This program will not edit Installsheild cabs though.

For Installsheild cabs You need the ICOMP cab editor which can be found here http://cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/files.shtml. I have used this program many times to insert the cracked game executable into the setup cab and make a cracked setup and it will also extract files. ICOMP does not have a GUI, it command line based.

[RedOtober]

If you litraly copy all the contents of one disk into a folder of the same name on the DVD, it'll all run smoothly. I did it using the basic burning software on a G4 Mac and from the DVD onto my hard disk. Then i got the no cd patch. In a nutshell my DVD rom wasn't fast enough to run UT2k4 so this proved the best solution.

:cool: Hi everybody

My goal is to discuss here how to put multiple game CDs in a single DVD. In my opinion, forcing a backup using Daemon Tools (although is a great program), is not exactly my first choice. I think it would be great if we could create a single game DVD from multiple-cds games, with autorun and no more CD swaps during the install procedure :rolleyes: .

I had success w/ a few games ;) :

thief: deadly shadows
farcry, painkiller, doom3 (easy, as you all know)
XIII
diabloII & expansion
Star Wars KOTOR

...but i had no success with :( :

emperor: battle for dune (only with daemon tools)
the suffering
phantasmagoria I (even with daemon tools...)

Phantasmagoria is a 7-cd game, begging for a DVD backup (saves a lot of storage space!). Daemon Tools does not seems to work in this particular case, because at the end of the first chapter (CD#1), the game asks for the second CD.

So, if you have experience with a particular game, making a total DVD conversion, please post here your story!

Thank you all
Kyle2k ;)

[VanTokkern]

If you wish to use the autorun files I used, get them here (http://members.home.nl/bljvtongeren/software/DoW_Autorun.rar).

Don't forget to create a autorun.inf looking like this:
[autorun]
open=YourAutoRunFileHere.exe
icon=YourIconHere.ico (this can also be an exe file, it will use the pic the exe uses. I used the pic from a setup.exe as you can see in the screenie posted above.)

Open the ucs file with notepad. Here you can alter the links. Remember tho, the numbers in front of the links are important, you can use it to put the links in any order you like, just have a look at the following;
If you open autoplay.ini, and scroll to the bottom, under [links], you can change where you want the links to be linked to. Now look at the numbers in front of these links. Here's how you can change the order to anything you like.
Under [display] you can change the background pic, and the color/size/font the links should be. You can also change the window size.
Also read the instructions given in the autoplay.ini file, they're good hints.

[VanTokkern]

An excellent program which I have used for making my own autorun.exe programs is Autoplay Media Studio Pro from IndigRose http://www.indigorose.com/ams/index.php
This is a quite expensive program but you can find bargain prices....if you know what I mean

I got a great deal on this one ;) Excellent program, thanks!! :D

You can use a CabPack
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/english.htm
to edit .cab files but you have to save as new cabs. This program will not edit Installsheild cabs though. You need the ICOMP cab editor which can be found somewhere on GCW in the tools section. I have used this program many times to insert the cracked game executable into the setup cab and make a cracked setup. This utility will also extract files. ICOMP does not have a GUI, it command line based.

This however did not work for me :(

[Grumpy]

@ Van Tokkern
Thanks m8, much appreciated. ;)
Hope you enjoyed the movie. :)
And again top stuff!!

[Pandora's Box]

Kyle2k or anyone else is that has successfully done a Star Wars KOTOR cd to dvd conversion I was wondering how exectly you did it. When I attempted to do this I copied all 4 cds to my HD then left the cd label the same as the one on cd1 and burned it. It installs fine up until all the way through the 4th cd then it asks for disk 4 because it wants to install direct x .. to get around this I copied the autorun setup information file from the fourth cd overwriting the autorun file that was on cd1.. Now the game installs fine all the way through, but the problem is now when I put the game in my DVD drive the game does not autorun because I copied over the autorum file with the one from disk 4 to get it to install properly ... So my question to you is did you manage to find a way to get the game to both install properly and have the autorun work at the same time?

[The One]

Edit this part of the autorun.inf file

[Disk]
Disk=1
Label1=Disk1

So it looks like this:

[Disk]
Disk=4
Label4=Disk4

Only edit part of the autorun file and keep the rest of the autorun files from CD 1

[Kyle2k]

Thanks to u all for the kind posts - helped a lot!!

Need some help with a DVD backup for C&C Renegade (2 CDs); even Daemon Tools fails to install the game - at least with .CCD (clonecd) images of the game.

Or....pehaps you guys can tell me how can i convert a .ccd image to a .iso one (maybe it will work this time...)

Yours
Kyle2k :cool:

[union jack]

full isatall game say black hawke down
zip entire game
dunno if matters but years ago u had to have hidden filez shown if not they wouldnt get zipped then game wouldnt work
using this method might need delete config file
and dont forget to make all filez archive
ya machine cant rewrite a read only file

any one selling a phillips 2600 cd rec
ill buy it it will copy anything