Installing multiple floppies with DOSBox.

[Xhumed]

First I would like to thank everyone that has written DOSBox tutorials here because I have learnt what little I know from them as a newb to DOSBox, I would also like to add something that other DOSBox newbs may find useful.

Learning the things that DOSBox can do is fine but something that may be confusing to newbs as it was for me is when to actually use some of these commands and why, a problem that many people will come across is installing games with DOSBox that originally required multiple floppy discs to be used for the game installation, this might sound like a simple case of just putting the game folder with all the files into your DOSBox game file “C:\DOS\CDRIVE\game file name here” this is where they would go if like me you have installed DOSBox using the guide lines in the Abandonia tutorial but, when you try to install the game in DOSBox the game asks you to choose A:\ or B:\ drive and insert the floppies one after the other but what do you do if like me you don't have a floppy drive how are you supposed to do this?

At first I didn't understand how to use DOSBox to get around this problem and I used a USB memory stick with the drive letter changed to B:\ and put the game files on that, I then mounted this as a floppy drive in DOSBox using "C:\ MOUNT B B:\ -t floppy" the USB stick was then treated as a floppy drive and could be selected as B:\ drive when installing the game and also because all the installation files are on the memory stick it didn't keep asking for the next floppy disc, success, it worked but it's not a very elegant solution and it's also totally unnecessary!

Experienced DOSBox users can stop laughing now :hysterical: and might be able to see where that experiment was leading me and how I had my "Eureka" moment when I realised that instead of mounting a memory stick as a floppy drive DOSBox can mount a folder as a floppy drive, so what, I had read this but I didn't realise how useful this could be or how or when you could use it but here was the perfect time to use it.

Using the command “C:\MOUNT A C:\DOS\CDRIVE\game file name here” DOSBox now treats this folder as a floppy drive with the drive name A:\ so now when you install the game with DOSBox and the game asks you to choose a floppy drive use A:\ and the game will install and without asking for more discs as all the installation files are in the game folder not spread over multiple floppy discs.

NOTE: You don't install the game from the "install or setup" file on drive A:\ you still install the game from it's directory file in C:\ in DOSBox.

It took me a while to get there but I feel I have learnt a very useful part of DOSBox and glimpsed a small part of just what DOSBox is capable of, hope this will be useful to fellow DOSBox newbs.

[dosraider]

.........
:omg:


With your creative mount tactics you gonna have a nice @#@#@#@ time when the game installer needs multiple specific labeled floppy mounts......

[The Fifth Horseman]

This might not work for some games, not just because of the label issue but because I remember some games having identically named data files (that differed by content) on several floppy disks.

There is one sure-fire way to install floppy games in DOSBox without using an actual floppy drive in the process: to use IMG files containing copies of the floppy contents with IMGMOUNT command.
IMGMOUNT A image_1 image_2 image_3 -t floppy

You can then cycle the images using CTRL+F4.
It also works for ISOs.

[Xhumed]

This might not work for some games, not just because of the label issue but because I remember some games having identically named data files (that differed by content) on several floppy disks.

There is one sure-fire way to install floppy games in DOSBox without using an actual floppy drive in the process: to use IMG files containing copies of the floppy contents with IMGMOUNT command.
IMGMOUNT A image_1 image_2 image_3 -t floppy

You can then cycle the images using CTRL+F4.
It also works for ISOs.

Hi, Thanks for that it's something I've read but not yet tried, I can see how to use it if you can make image files from the floppies or if someone has copied the files to individual folders Disc 1, Disc 2 etc but the game I was experimenting with (Subwar 2050) has all the files in one folder and as you said some have the same name and I have no way of knowing which files came from which disc, I think I might have been a bit lucky getting the game to install and work but I like to have a good go at getting games to work before I ask for help, I still get a buzz out of bringing an old game back to life even if my methods are...Umm, different. (Ignorance is bliss):clap:

[The Fifth Horseman]

You can use a program called WinImage to store contents of floppy disks into IMG files. Just FYI. :)

[Luchsen]

Using multiple files is only supported for cue/iso images.

:(

[The Fifth Horseman]

o.O
In 0.70 it worked just fine for IMG format floppies...

[dosraider]

Some CVS releases still support multiple floppy image mounting.

It was in the 0.73 betas, but has been retracted from the RC and final releases because of some troubles. (I'm -partially- to blame for that, sorry folks).

[Geezer]

Are you sure it was retracted? I used multiple img file mounts to play the 84 edition of Seven Cities of Gold in DOSbox 7.3. I don't think I have the beta version.

EDIT: Guess it was the previous release. Why did they take it out? It worked fine for me.

[dosraider]

EDIT: Guess it was the previous release. Why did they take it out? It worked fine for me.
It doesn't work for all games, and that's the problem.
Some dos game installers use non-standard functions.
Weird stuff sometimes.

As 'why' they took it out, I don't know, personally I would have left it in, even if it didn't worked for some games.
But I'm not a dosbox dev, they must have their reasons, I guess that in time things will -(hopefully)- be sorted out.
It's a good feature, as modern PCs don't have 'real' floppy drives anymore, only USB flopdrives, and no 5.25's.

[Ruku_DOS]

First I would like to thank everyone that has written DOSBox tutorials here because I have learnt what little I know from them as a newb to DOSBox, I would also like to add something that other DOSBox newbs may find useful.

Learning the things that DOSBox can do is fine but something that may be confusing to newbs as it was for me is when to actually use some of these commands and why, a problem that many people will come across is installing games with DOSBox that originally required multiple floppy discs to be used for the game installation, this might sound like a simple case of just putting the game folder with all the files into your DOSBox game file “C:\DOS\CDRIVE\game file name here” this is where they would go if like me you have installed DOSBox using the guide lines in the Abandonia tutorial but, when you try to install the game in DOSBox the game asks you to choose A:\ or B:\ drive and insert the floppies one after the other but what do you do if like me you don't have a floppy drive how are you supposed to do this?

At first I didn't understand how to use DOSBox to get around this problem and I used a USB memory stick with the drive letter changed to B:\ and put the game files on that, I then mounted this as a floppy drive in DOSBox using "C:\ MOUNT B B:\ -t floppy" the USB stick was then treated as a floppy drive and could be selected as B:\ drive when installing the game and also because all the installation files are on the memory stick it didn't keep asking for the next floppy disc, success, it worked but it's not a very elegant solution and it's also totally unnecessary!

Experienced DOSBox users can stop laughing now :hysterical: and might be able to see where that experiment was leading me and how I had my "Eureka" moment when I realised that instead of mounting a memory stick as a floppy drive DOSBox can mount a folder as a floppy drive, so what, I had read this but I didn't realise how useful this could be or how or when you could use it but here was the perfect time to use it.

Using the command “C:\MOUNT A C:\DOS\CDRIVE\game file name here” DOSBox now treats this folder as a floppy drive with the drive name A:\ so now when you install the game with DOSBox and the game asks you to choose a floppy drive use A:\ and the game will install and without asking for more discs as all the installation files are in the game folder not spread over multiple floppy discs.

NOTE: You don't install the game from the "install or setup" file on drive A:\ you still install the game from it's directory file in C:\ in DOSBox.

It took me a while to get there but I feel I have learnt a very useful part of DOSBox and glimpsed a small part of just what DOSBox is capable of, hope this will be useful to fellow DOSBox newbs.

well, I've been trying to install syndicate, I have a folder with all the necessary files for installation but... the game had multiple floppy discs, I can mount the drive and label disk 1 but I can't label the others whatever many there are... so I keep getting stuck on disk 2 and I have no idea how to progress with the installation... any ideas?

[zirkoni]

Do you have the floppy images?
ImDisk
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/TOOLS:ImDisk_Virtual_Disk_Driver

If you only have one folder full of files I guess you could try creating an image of the folder (yes, it's possible), mount that image and edit the label as needed.

[DaveTheMan]

This might not work for some games, not just because of the label issue but because I remember some games having identically named data files (that differed by content) on several floppy disks.

There is one sure-fire way to install floppy games in DOSBox without using an actual floppy drive in the process: to use IMG files containing copies of the floppy contents with IMGMOUNT command.
IMGMOUNT A image_1 image_2 image_3 -t floppy

You can then cycle the images using CTRL+F4.
It also works for ISOs.

Where do you put the Directory where the Images in?

[Smiling Spectre]

I believe, "image_1" etc means full path to the image. Like c:\dosgames\floppies\disk1.dsk. :)

[Japo]

The imgmount DOSBox command has (unlike mount of course) the nice feature that you can specify paths either real or relative to the current virtual directory. It will search for the image file in both systems.

[Smiling Spectre]

or relative to the current virtual directory. It will search for the image file in both systems.
Ah, I suspected it. Then question: "relative" still means full path/current dir? I.e. if image is in mounted/image dir, am I need to use c:/image/img.dsk, or /image/img.dsk is enough?

[Japo]

I really mean relative, but I don't remember all the cases, would have to try them out... I do remember at least that if the image file is at mounted c:\dsk.img and the DOSBox prompt is at c:\ then you can just type imgmount a dsk.img -t floppy. This is what I used in the tutorial I wrote for CDs. I'm not 100% sure if in your other case "image\dsk.img" or "\image\dsk.img" would also work.

[DaveTheMan]

I really mean relative, but I don't remember all the cases, would have to try them out... I do remember at least that if the image file is at mounted c:\dsk.img and the DOSBox prompt is at c:\ then you can just type imgmount a dsk.img -t floppy. This is what I used in the tutorial I wrote for CDs. I'm not 100% sure if in your other case "image\dsk.img" or "\image\dsk.img" would also work.

This comes up when I try to do that:

https://s5.postimg.org/4fuhxv01j/Multiple_Floppys_Error.jpg

So how do I get around that?

That is Using the Orginal Build of DosBox 0.74

[Japo]

Your case has nothing to do with the virtual paths, but anyway, assuming those files exist, the error message says that mounting multiple images on the same drive is possible only for CD images, not floppy, and a particular image file format at that. This seems to be the case according to my test. So Horseman's statement was not completely correct, he was probably used to do this for CD images and assumed it worked the same for floppies.

It's always possible to mount multiple images at different drive letters, e.g.

imgmount a dsk1.img -t floppy
imgmount b dsk2.img -t floppy

[DaveTheMan]

Your case has nothing to do with the virtual paths, but anyway, assuming those files exist, the error message says that mounting multiple images on the same drive is possible only for CD images, not floppy, and a particular image file format at that. This seems to be the case according to my test. So Horseman's statement was not completely correct, he was probably used to do this for CD images and assumed it worked the same for floppies.

It's always possible to mount multiple images at different drive letters, e.g.

imgmount a dsk1.img -t floppy
imgmount b dsk2.img -t floppy

Funny thing I tried the Latest SVN version that I got here:

http://www.emucr.com/2016/08/dosbox-svn-r3991.html

I tried that with Floppy's and Worked on That. :OK:

Guess it was Added since the Offical DosBox have not been Updated for a Few Years

[Japo]

You can of course dump all files from different disks into a single directory and mount that instead of the images, like the OP suggests. For installations that's easiest when it works (in absence of copy protection etc.) since you don't have to do anything every time the installer asks for the next disk, just press continue.

[DaveTheMan]

You can of course dump all files from different disks into a single directory and mount that instead of the images, like the OP suggests. For installations that's easiest when it works (in absence of copy protection etc.) since you don't have to do anything every time the installer asks for the next disk, just press continue.

That sound like it could work BUT What program would I use to make a Floppy Disk Image?

[Japo]

You don't need any images, unless that's the original format how you got the content. Just use the mount command instead of imgmount. It supports the -t floppy or -t cdrom parameters as well, if needed at all.

[Neville]

I ran into this problem I few days ago, when I tried to install a multi-floppy game... since the install program looked at the volume labels I couldn't just copy the files to a floder and mouint it as a floppy.

In the end I used PCem plus a DOS installation to install the game, then transferred the installed files with WinImage.

[zirkoni]

2012-12-30 17:47 qbix79 * [r3808] src/dos/dos_programs.cpp: Last part of multi floppy patch by rcblanke.
DOSBox SVN has had the support for mounting multiple floppy images for a few years. Just one of the reasons why I've compiled my own DOSBox binary from the source.