BioForge Installation Problems

[jetblue1717]

I seem to be having a lot of trouble installing Bioforge:
There is one installation icon in the game folder: It is an .exe file (blank screen as an icon). Whenever I click on it to run on it, I get a text box with the message:
"Not ready reading drive D
Abort, Retry, or Fail?"
If I insert a disk into my first disk drive (D), then I get the same message but with drive E.
If I also insert a disk into my second drive (E), then I get the same message with A (my floppy disk drive).
Finally, if I insert a blank floppy, the text box appears briefly, then disappears. I've tried writing the game to a disk, but that didn't do anything, and though a floppy might work, I don't have any 3 1\2 inch floppys that would hold nearly enough space.
So what can I do?

[DOSGuy]

The first thing you should be doing is using DOSBox. If you've never used DOSBox, there's an easy to understand tutorial here.

DOSBox will let you designate an ordinary folder on your hard drive as a floppy or CD-ROM drive. Since BioForge was a CD-ROM game, try something like this from the DOSBox prompt.

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mount c c:\bioforge
mount d c:\bioforge -t cdrom

That's right, you can mount the same folder to look like a hard drive (C:) and a CD-ROM drive (D:)!

The reason why you want to do this is because BioForge is a CD-ROM game, so it probably expects you to have the CD in your optical drive and it will store your settings and saved games on the hard drive. It sounds like you don't have the BioForge CD-ROM (though I assume you still acquired your copy of the game legally), so you're putting a CD-ROM in the D drive, the game doesn't find the CD it wants, so it asks you to put a CD in the E drive.

[jetblue1717]

The first thing you should be doing is using DOSBox. If you've never used DOSBox, there's an easy to understand tutorial here.

DOSBox will let you designate an ordinary folder on your hard drive as a floppy or CD-ROM drive. Since BioForge was a CD-ROM game, try something like this from the DOSBox prompt.

Code: Select all

mount c c:\bioforge
mount d c:\bioforge -t cdrom

That's right, you can mount the same folder to look like a hard drive (C:) and a CD-ROM drive (D:)!

The reason why you want to do this is because BioForge is a CD-ROM game, so it probably expects you to have the CD in your optical drive and it will store your settings and saved games on the hard drive. It sounds like you don't have the BioForge CD-ROM (though I assume you still acquired your copy of the game legally), so you're putting a CD-ROM in the D drive, the game doesn't find the CD it wants, so it asks you to put a CD in the E drive.

Used DOSbox, got this message:
"Cannot Find File C:\BIOFORGE\Script\Emessage.txt"

I checked and that file is not missing at all, I can even read from that exact location.

[DOSGuy]

Used DOSbox, got this message:
"Cannot Find File C:\BIOFORGE\Script\Emessage.txt"

I checked and that file is not missing at all, I can even read from that exact location.

Once you've used the command "mount c c:\bioforge", you've made it look like c:\bioforge is c:\ to DOSBox. Relative to the drive you mounted, the file the game is looking for is at c:\Script\Emessage.txt! It's not a good idea to mount c:\ as a virtual drive, so try putting the bioforge folder in a folder called bioforge. That way, you can mount c:\bioforge as a virtual drive called c:, and c:\bioforge\bioforge\script\emessage.txt will become c:\bioforge\script\emessage.txt while you're in DOSBox.

[jetblue1717]

Used DOSbox, got this message:
"Cannot Find File C:\BIOFORGE\Script\Emessage.txt"

I checked and that file is not missing at all, I can even read from that exact location.

Once you've used the command "mount c c:\bioforge", you've made it look like c:\bioforge is c:\ to DOSBox. Relative to the drive you mounted, the file the game is looking for is at c:\Script\Emessage.txt! It's not a good idea to mount c:\ as a virtual drive, so try putting the bioforge folder in a folder called bioforge. That way, you can mount c:\bioforge as a virtual drive called c:, and c:\bioforge\bioforge\script\emessage.txt will become c:\bioforge\script\emessage.txt while you're in DOSBox.

I'm sorry. Because I'm retarded can you break this down step by step for me?

[DOSGuy]

Let's say that I told you that there are cookies nearby. You're on the first floor of my house and I tell you to climb one flight of stairs and turn left. If you follow those instructions, you'll find cookies.

Last night you slept in the guest room on the second floor. When you wake up, you want to eat more cookies. You remember my directions, so you climb one flight of stairs and turn left to find the cookies. This time you won't find the cookies because you were already on the second floor when you started looking for the cookies.

DOSBox is like that. When you mount a folder on your C: drive as a virtual drive called C:, you're making the second floor look like the first floor.

If I understand correctly, BioForge is looking for a file at C:\BIOFORGE\Script\Emessage.txt. When you run DOSBox, the first thing that you do is mount a virtual drive. Your game is in a folder called C:\BIOFORGE, so you type "mount c c:\bioforge". Now when you type "c:", it takes you to a virtual drive called c:, which is actually c:\bioforge on your hard drive. If the game starts looking for a folder called "C:\BIOFORGE" now, it won't find it because it's already in the folder called C:\BIOFORGE. It's looking for cookies on the second floor, not realizing that it's already on the second floor!

The most obvious solution is to type "mount c c:\", but that's inadvisable. The whole point of mounting a virtual drive is to limit the damage you can do to your computer while using DOSBox. If you were to start deleting folders in your virtual drive, you could delete your Windows folder or lose all of your data. So, if the game has a batch file or config setting that tells it to look for a file in the C:\BIOFORGE folder, you have to make sure that there's a BIOFORGE folder in the BIOFORGE folder.

Step 1. Create a folder called BIOFORGE2
Step 2. Drag your BIOFORGE folder and drop it in BIOFORGE2
Step 3. Change the name of BIOFORGE2 to BIOFORGE

Now you're going to do what you did before:

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mount c c:\bioforge
mount d c:\bioforge -t cdrom

This time, when you go to "c:", there will be a folder called BIOFORGE. When the game looks for C:\BIOFORGE\Script\Emessage.txt, it will find it. To you, the file is at C:\BIOFORGE\BIOFORGE\Script\Emessage.txt, but DOSBox is making it look like it's actually at C:\BIOFORGE\Script\Emessage.txt, where the game expects to find it, since it knows it's looking for cookies on the second floor, but doesn't realize that it's already on the second floor.

[ThreeHeadedMonkey]

Let's say that I told you that there are cookies nearby. You're on the first floor of my house and I tell you to climb one flight of stairs and turn left. If you follow those instructions, you'll find cookies.

Last night you slept in the guest room on the second floor. When you wake up, you want to eat more cookies. You remember my directions, so you climb one flight of stairs and turn left to find the cookies. This time you won't find the cookies because you were already on the second floor when you started looking for the cookies.

That's a great analogy! :-)