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[wendymaree]

Okies, against all odds, I've got it working.

I'll give a run down in case anyone else has problems with starting this game which has a link in the ISO Cellar.

I was doing everything wrong before. To start with, you only need burn one of the images to CD rom. You're presented with an mdf and a mds file. when I examined the contents of these files in ISO Magic, I saw they both had the same files. So I burnt one of them to a CD rom. I ran the install exe by mounting the mdf file with ISO magic, I think, and this gave me another folder with the Shadoan bat file. This is the file needed to play the game. Then you run the set up exe to set your sound and vid options. It ran ok from Windows Vista.

In the Doxbox config file, I pointed the top line of the mount file instructions to the first folder containing the Shadoan bat file - as the install program had automatically installed it - like this: MOUNT C C:\INTRPLAY
and then gave the CD Rom drive letter and command on the second line of the mount file instructions.

This comes down the bottom of the dosbox config instructions - here:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
MOUNT C C:\INTRPLAY
MOUNT E E:\ -t cdrom

Hope this all makes sense.

Shadoan is a great adventure game which is well-worth a play.

[dosraider]

Originally Posted by wendymaree

.... To start with, you only need burn one of the images to CD rom. You're presented with an mdf and a mds file. when I examined the contents of these files in ISO Magic, I saw they both had the same files. So I burnt one of them to a CD rom. ....

These two files together are the CD image.
MDF contains the actual image
MDS contains media info of that image.

A bit as BIN/CUE ....

A good soft to handle CD images is the freeware and excellent ImgBurn.
http://www.imgburn.com/

And to avoid all kinds of weird problems you should install dosgames in dosbox, not in Windows.
Some games will not accept another CD drive letter, or will autodetect the win audio settings resulting in problems later.

Also as you're on Vista you really should create a folder to use as virtual C, not install the games in Windows directly on your C:\ root.
A short how to:
http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=19982

[wendymaree]

Thanks, some good tips there. I've been playing the game for a few hours, though, and so far it's still going ok using the steps I mentioned above. One weird thing is I can't get the manual.bat file to open in dosbox. The manual is needed to work out some tricks such as moving the character to new locations. But a read of online reviews revealed that a clickable map will open when you hit the tab key.

Edit:
I just discovered there's a folder called 'Manual' amongst the files burnt to CD. *g* View.exe will open nicely in dosbox.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Wendy: As I said before, DOSBox only supports ISO and BIN/CUE images.
MDF/MDS will not work with it, period.
Given how few DOS games used any form of copy protection, chances are that the same image converted to ISO or BIN/CUE will work just fine with DOSBox.

[wendymaree]

Ehm, Fifth Horseman, with all due respect, what are you talking about? Did you read what I wrote above? I got the game working perfectly in Dos Box and that involved burning the mdf file to the CD rom. I've finished playing the game, so it's history now.
But thanks.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Erm.

IMGMOUNT G C:\Users\Wendy\Documents\games\shadoan\SHADOAN1\SH ADOAN1.mds

I was trying to explain the burning A CD from the MDF/MDS image was unneccesary.
You could have used the program you burned it with to convert it into an ISO or BIN/CUE image, either of which would work with IMGMOUNT straight off your hard drive. (been there, done that)

[wendymaree]

Oooh, I see. *g* Thanks for explaining. I'd have preferred to play it off the hard drive.

You know, I don't think I understand the English language all that well. That's understandable as I've only been speaking and writing it all my life, and I'm a writer...hehe.

Thanks, again, Fifth.