AOE2 will not install after emulator-help!
 

Please help. I hope the answer hasn't been posted 1000 times because I couldn't find it after 3 days searching and reading. Yes I am a newbie. I bought AOE2.0a for my toshiba portege 3110ct running windows 98. Stupidly I did not know you needed the original cd in the machine to run the game, I don't have a cd-rom on this machine. However I am networked to a Mac with a Yamaha CRW6416S and I have a compaq pentium at work with a basic cd drive (i don't know brand/model).

I ftped a simple drag and drop copy of the files from the cd to the laptop. I installed AOE2 on the laptop. Got please insert cd error. I don't have a cd-rom on this computer.

I installed paragon cd emulator, daemon tools and then clone cd in an attempt to make this copy mount as a cd. Then I learned about 1 to 1 copying.

I installed clonecd at work, made a 1:1 copy, and ftped it home. I tried using daemon tools and clone-cd to open it at home - no luck. It mounts as a music cd with 2 tracks. I uninstalled everything, AOE2, paragon, daemon-tools, clonecd from the laptop. I reinstalled just daemon-tools and clonecd and I still can't get the 1:1 copy of AOE2 to mount.

Then I learned about no-cd patches. So I tried to reinstall AOE2 from the original drag and drop copy and now it wont install. It goes through the whole install setup and then starts copying files until it is 66% complete and is loading .dll files and it says: "initializing uninstall" and then it says "installation did not complete successfully" I've tried to uninstall again and reinstall. I've searched the microsoft site and have followed their instructions for deleting the Windows\Temp folder and for doing a clean boot. But still no success.

Please help. Something is preventing the AOE2 files from installing and I think it is something to do with the safedisk security. If I could just find out what it is and delete it, I would be eternally grateful. Or could you just turn me on to another game that works without a cd-rom drive.

Paul

PS For all of those people who think you are only helping others to pirate games illegally, I think my post shows that you are also helping people to use the legal copies of games they have purchased. In my case, I think this safedisk crap which is keeping me from using the game I bought should be illegal.

Re: AOE2 will not install after emulator-help!
 

We're only concerned about wasting our time and resources on cheap ass warezers with badly working copies. If they get help from already published answers, or they succesfully pose as legal owners, there's nothing anyone can or will do against that. It's just the MASSIVE influx of warez kiddies that has to be contained to keep room for the real legal users, so if you got a bought version, ask anything you want here. This board exists solely to help people who bought a game with their hard earned money and then find out the evil, stupid publishers try to cripple it with dumb copy protections. We're not going to refuse giving answers, just because the warez kiddies can use them too. Most of them are usually too dumb to ask a question without incriminating themselves anyway.

So welcome to the group, and now let's deal with your question. You were already halfway there, I must really give you extra points for researching so much before asking here, it's really a nice change from the usual "How do I copy my game preferably without reading anything or doing anything myself?"-questions we get here.

Basically, the CloneCD/Daemon Tools combo WILL work, there's just something that went wrong along the way. These two programs are the only ones you need, dump the rest. Make sure you've got the latest (or as late as possible) version of both, try looking up the version numbers and tell me.

The problem with 2 music tracks instead of a data track is clearly a problem with clonecd. There are different settings possible in clonecd, things like "Data CD", "Game cd" etc... Which have you tried ? Have you tried "Game cd" ? If you did, have you tried "Data cd" ? There's an utility called ClonyXXL that can give you a new option that takes into account the specific copy protection used.

When you can succesfully load the image in Daemon Tools, let me know and we'll see about any other possible errors. Daemon Tools will work for AOM, so keep trying. Oh and I'd suggest you test everything on you desktop pc first, before you send it over, might save a lot of wasted time ;)

emulator cd-rom working great
 

RincewindTheWiz,
Thanks, you've got the magic touch. I followed your directions. I downloaded the latest versions of ClonyXXL and CloneCd. I made a new disk image by following the directions in Clony read me file. It loaded right into the emulated cd-rom in CloneCD. It also installed and played the game no problem.

So I ftped the disk image files home. I loaded clone cd and bada bing. I just played a campaign of Joan of Arc.

I just had the wrong clone cd settings all along and clonyxxl made all the difference.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to point me in the right direction.

Paul