Making HL2's 6CDs into 1DVD

[LeXo5]

I personally have never done it, but it sounds like it would be really easy to do. As far as I know, installers just look for the next needed file and if it doesn't exist, just ask for disk two, other wise it just continues. So all we would have to do is extract CD1's contents and take the content from the other 5 discs, put them all in one folder and re-burn on a DVD.

They did something like this for Doom 3. Just google for it.

Anyone have any experiance turning multiple install CDs into DVDs?

(to admins = correct me if you think im wrong but i don't think this runs over any rules, i have read them)

 

[Hazar]

I think you could tecnically just make images of all of them, and then burn thoes to your hd. Then just use a virtual drive with Alcohol %120 or something like that.

I don't think it would be illeagal in any way, you payed for it and it would be considered a backup.

 

[LeXo5]

I think you could tecnically just make images of all of them, and then burn thoes to your hd. Then just use a virtual drive with Alcohol %120 or something like that.

Well, I got into the trend of using images but two things have got me going back to hard media : (1) lotsa disk space is needed for images and (2) unnecessary hard drive usage to both read from it and write to it

 

[Lanthanide]

Hazar - often I don't even make images, just do a flat file copy to your HD in a directory and install from that.

LeXo - your plan will most likely work, there are a few games for which things like this doesn't work (SimCity 4), and of course if there is copy protection on the CDs it may be a little harder to do.

Also, as for "unneccsary hard drive usage to read from and write to it" I assume you mean while installing the game. Hard drives are considerably quicker than CD-rom drives (assuming 7,200 RPM and 8 meg cache), even more so if you have them in RAID 0 array or the 10,000 raptors. For example it took something like 5 minutes to install Doom 3 off my HD when I got the warez, then a few days later when I bought a legit copy when it was available in my area it took about 15 minutes to install off the CDs.

So it's a bit of a silly reason - and if doing this 'wore' your HD out faster, than it would be a pretty shoddy HD as they should be designed to quickly read and write data neigh-simultaneously for long periods of time.

Furthermore, this is how Steam works anyway - installing from your HD to your HD, so there's really nothing wrong with it.

 

[mxlegend99]

to bypass that on simcity 4 is really easy, in hte root folder is a text file which when you open it, you edit something that looks like:

2,1 whatever.exe

to say

1,1 whatever.exe

and it looks at cd1 instead of cd2.

I am not sure what its called exactly, but its not difficult to work out, and theirs very few lines needed to be changed. Doom3 is actually more difficult, as if you drop them into 1 folder, it works until reburned to DVD, as it asks for disc2 regardless. Same thing with THUG2. I think it might be activision related.

 

[Silic0nJ3sus]

Daemon Tools....creates a virtual drive from an image. Works with any game that requires a disc to play.

 

[SMT]

Daemon Tools....creates a virtual drive from an image. Works with any game that requires a disc to play.

Actually, many, many games won't run with virtual drive and disc cloning tools.

 

[Silic0nJ3sus]

Actually, many, many games won't run with virtual drive and disc cloning tools.

I have yet to find one that doesn't work with Daemon Tools.

 

[chriso20]

At the end of the last installing cache wont it prompt "please install disk 2"?

But i suppose it'l look for disk2.dat or what ever the friggin files are on the disk and it'l find em, so i suppose it could work

Tell us if it does.

 

[Silic0nJ3sus]

At the end of the last installing cache wont it prompt "please install disk 2"?

But i suppose it'l look for disk2.dat or what ever the friggin files are on the disk and it'l find em, so i suppose it could work

Tell us if it does.

You just have to mount that seperate image, unless you just take all of the files and put them into one image, then it should just install everything.

 

[PvtRyan]

Actually, many, many games won't run with virtual drive and disc cloning tools.

That one game from EA even removes all software capable of doing that

And some games check for it and refuse to play.

 

[mxlegend99]

The Sims 2 is not meant to, but actually does. Tony Hawk Underground 2 doesnt work properly, but their is a trick to get it running. DTM Race Driver 2/V8 Supercars 2 whatever its called wherever, will not work.
The Sims 2 works with specific versions of Alcohol and Daemon Tools, while THUG2 (got it yesterday) seems to just fluke loading sometimes. Race Driver 2 hasnt been cracked nor can any emulation software run it. Their are tricks which involve mounting hte image over a network drive to run it... but their are plenty which cant be emulated.

 

[Shuzer]

Generally, all you have to do is edit the accompanying .msi files, move stuff from CD to a new folder, burn it! I did this with Doom 3.. the downside is, it kills the CD check, and you have to either use a backup CD crack, or a no CD crack.

 

[Gunsnroses]

Actually, many, many games won't run with virtual drive and disc cloning tools.

As far as i know daemon has no problems with any game.

I should know, i dont have a cd rom

 

[ATI4EVER!]

w00t! i like having 6cds! It makes the game look bigger!!