problem with:metal gear solid involving daemon tolls, please read!!!

[mitsos79b]

Hi everytone, I am new to the site, Merry christmans to all. I have a problem with saving games with metal gear solid. I run it from the virtual drive of daemon tools, I am sure some of them should know them. About an hour ago I wrote them an email, stating the problem, I'll post my email here too, hoping for some help fro you guys. Thanks in advance. Here goes:




Hello and Merry Christmas guys.
First let me congratulate you on a great job you have done with daemon tools. I am quite pleased with the use of the tools although there is something going on, which I do not understand, it may be a bug or simply something I am not doing right.
So, here goes:

I tried the tools (latest version v3.26) on one game so far, which is Metal Gear Solid. The particular game has safedisk protection. I followed the instructions of the tools and I created 2 images for the game (one image for each game cd) with the use of clonecd (version 4.0.1.10). Then, without having safedisk emulation on, I mounted the image of the game from the stealth drive, provided by the tools. It loaded alright, I installed the game successfully (1,1 gig. Full installation), and the game runs just fine. So far, so good. The problem starts from here and on. I cannot save the game. The readme.txt of the game itself, says that if there is not enough space on the hard disk, saved games will not be saved despite the fact that the game will state that saving of the was successful and that is simply because (theoretically) there is not enough hard disk space. The thing is, however, that I have about 7 gigs of free space!!!
Several reasons come in my mind searching for the source of the problem.

Firstly, I thought that there was something wrong with the save files. The game creates 2 savegames automatically after 2 cut-scenes occur, when I progress in the game. The names of the saved game files are “The Dock” and “Heliport A”. I saw in my hard disk that the extensions of the files did not show and the files are simply described as “file”, even though I have activated through options that all file extensions will show. I had downloaded a saved game from another site which brought me in the same position as the “Heliport A” but with more goodies…Anyway I saw that the extension of this file is .dat

I went in the game, rephrased the savegames I had, adding the .dat extension and then they showed in the hard disk (in the game folder in win explorer) the extension and their description was “DAT file”. However, no progress was made, saves are still not saved. I kept loading to the same spot! Exactly how the glitch is reported in the game’s readme.txt

Secondly, I thought that it might have been the properties of the save games folder. Maybe the folder was marked as “read-only” and with that ticked, saved games couldn’t be written. Nope, “read-only” was not ticked, that wasn’t the cause.

Thirdly, it occurred to me that it may be because I load the game from the virtual drive using the image. So I unmounted the image, replaced the game’s .exe files with an appropriate no-cd crack and I tried it from there. Nope, saved games still can’t be actually saved.

My fourth and final thought was that it may be from the fact that I installed the game through the image with the virtual drive and not by the original cd.
If the latter is the case than it is a bug unfortunately, or I don’t do something right.
I can’t solve the problem or locate any other sources of it.
I’d really appreciate it if you could help me out. Thanks in advance, merry christmas to you all.
James from Athens, Greece.

[Copytrooper]

Come to the Daemon Tools board to talk about your problem ... may be someone could help you ... btw it could be just a bug in the game (i.e. you have to much free space), I will check it out later ...

[RincewindTheWiz]

I don't see anywhere in your post that you tried to play with the originals without any crack or daemon tools. This might be a problem of the game itself, it's very likely that you already tried this but I can't seem to find that in your post. So if you didn't could you try it on it's own, installed from the discs and with daemon tools unloaded (just use Exit) ?

[Copytrooper]

Checked it from cds and image - no problem at all ... very strange problem.

[mitsos79b]

Thanks for your answers guys, I expect more if you find anything(Please!!!!!!!!!)

No copytrooper not once did I install the game from the original cds or played it from them. Frankly I don't think I'd have a problem with anything if I did. Oh well. Also thanks for pointing out the d-tools board.I am posting the problem there right now. Thanks.

Also something, I hadn't told before. I started using d-tools and everything else about this game when I failed in copying the game. I knew it had safedisk protection, I placed the corresponding settings in clonecd, I made an image of it just fine and I copied the 2 cds just fine. However, the newly created backup cds neither on my creative cd-rom 52x Mx nor in my plexwriter 40/12/40A played and not only that, but it crashed badly my pc..............

This happens for the first time.I must have copied about 10 games, always with various protections but with the appropriate settings set in clonecd and then they played fine (some times though they needed a nocd crack but that is trivial). I suspect that, despite the fact that I set the appropriate settings in clonecd for the safedisk protection concerning the metal gear solid cds, in these settings I left ticked other kinds of settings as well which concerned other copy protection types. Perhaps if I had ticked the settings for the particular game and copy protection, then the backup copies may have been ok to be played with (or with the use of a nocd crack) Unfortunately I don't have the original cds anymore, I'll have to get my handc on them again to find out........