i have been looking for a way to combine all 5 cds of final fantasy xi to one dvd, for install purposes. can somebody tell me if this would be possible? i mean, i can copy them to the dvd and all, but when the install prompts for another cd, is there a way to alter the install so it just goes to the next folder automatically? the install is very long and it would be easier for it to work like that. i really don't know why square enix didn't do it that way.

thanks for any help you guys can give!

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Make a folder on the hard-disk
Simply copy contents of all CDs into this folder in the same directory-structure as they were on the CDs.
Then burn that to DVD.

That should work - I did the same to UT2004 (5 CDs), and it works fine.

yes I've done this for many games
only problem u're going to encounter is when the game asks for the play cd or the 1st cd the dvd u make will not be sufficient. either u'll have to use no-cd cracks (for backup purposes) or u'll have to keep your dvd as install dvd and have your cd1's ready to play
or u can make images of your cd1's and save them on your hdd and mount the images when u want to play the game

I personally use the no-cd's where possible. for the games I play online I prefer the mounting method.

though making images is pretty tricks, its not only done by programs, u need to have the appropiate hardware (cd-copy protection copier cd-rom/dvd-roms)
and some protections like star force 3 is not known to be solved. (like dtm toca race driver 2)

for ut2004 since the latest patch enables no-cd by itself u can just put them on dvd as prathapml mentioned.

I use alcohol 120% to make backups, there is blindwrite and clonecd, alcohol has the best user interface blindwrite right now could be ahead of alcohol bc of enabling certain types of protections to get copied. but I've bough alcohol using it everyday. Its one of the best decisions I've made.. ow and alcohol has a nice forum of its own with lots and lots of good users..

thanks guys, i'll give that a try. this game installs everything to hdd and is meant to be played without cds, so i don't need them in to play.



Edit: i finally gave that a try. it worked like a charm. install rolled on to 100% and didn't ask for a cd. thanks a lot guys!! only issue i got is at end of 3rd cd it pops up a reminder about putting in cd 4 (the expansion cd). so maybe i can find someway to backwards engineer the exe file so it doesn't do that. other than that, i just made a batch file to install everything.

ok, got everything working but trying to get it to install silently. there is an msi file. i use the /quiet switch and i get this error:

To run a silent install you must either specify a response file or override this event (OnMsiSilentInstall()) and provide your own implementation.

The setup will now end.

can anyone help or lend any suggestions?

Just wanted to bump this with an additional question....

Anyone know of a way to backup the installed game? (to a big archive or something with a reg file of all the installed reg entries)

The reason is that I am quite likely to freshly install XP every now and then - dont we all? lol - and although the install process is fairly annoying, the updating currently took me 2.5-ish hrs!!! and thats with a 2M DSL connection (unsure why it took so long to be honest but still)

Has anyone tried this and can anyone suggest anything?

I dont want to fiddle with this, just in case I mess something up and have to do the same install and update process i did the other day all over again lol

Regards,
N.

PS Off to play it in 5 mins - tarquel is nick and I'm in the world Lakshmi

There was an article somewhere on the net that explained how to get Doom3 onto a DVD.

The problem occurs when you run the MSI file. The Doom 3 MSI checks for a specific volume name (name of CD or DVD). So you have to use a program called Orca to alter the MSI data to use whatever name you specify for your DVD.

Read this: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/117079

Check this File Forums thread CD2DVD conversion for a lot of useful info.

Awesome link that - good stuff

nice handle by the way - i too miss using my "miggy" - really should get it out again

Regards,
N.

I followed that guide and it's excellent. It's really easy to integrate several disks into one DVD, the main thing to do here is to extract all the files to one directory as prathapml were saying and after that edit the MSI installation file using a MSI editor and remove the all "disk" entries in the title "media" exept the first one. By doing this, you are telling your installation that you use the same disk for all files. Some installations doesn't require you to do this so you'll have to give it a shot and see if it works. If the installation doesn't have MSI installer and requires some editing then I don't know what to do. What to do if it's InstallShield or any other package? Does anyone know the answer for this one?

well i've also put doom3 on a dvd but it asks for the cd2
but if i copy all the doom3 files to a folder in my comp it installs perfectly..

i had altered the msi as said when patch 1.1 was released.. its fairly easy....and works...