DOSBox floppy help

[BoneSnapDeez]

So I have very little experience with actual DOS, but I've used DOSBox quite a bit over the past few years. I've played countless downloaded and CD-ROM games on it.

Anyway, the other day a spotted a floppy disk copy of Leisure Suit Larry that was too good to pass up.

I don't have a floppy drive on my PC so I dragged an older (2003 Dell with Windows XP) out of the basement. I installed DOSBox on it and then proceeded to install the game, which went smoothly.

Problem is, I can't play the damn thing! When I attempt to start the game I get this:



I'm assuming this means I need the floppy disk in the drive to boot the game (even though I installed it?). Nothing happens when I hit Enter though, the disk drive doesn't even "click." I feel like I'm missing something here... any ideas?

[CRTGAMER]

Are you in C:\game ?

Maybe its trying to setup the sound drivers; running from the floppy disc? Is there a SETUP.EXE in the installed directory to configure the sound card? The "Copy Protection" does seem strange, most floppies are complete installs without need of the disk for playing a game.

[Anapan]

Maybe Dosbox doesn't know about your A Drive?

Try adding this to the bottom line of dosbox.cfg
MOUNT A A:\ -t floppy

If that doesn't work you can try making the disk into an image and mount it as a virtual a drive...

Use Winimage to create a floppy image file (eg. LSL.ima). Move the file into the root of your Dosbox game directory (eg. c:\dos\), then mount it (edit the dosbox.cfg file and add this line at the bottom)
imgmount a c:\dos\LSL.ima -t floppy
^ this should allow you to play it on your main computer as well if you copy the installation directory and image file onto it.

Dosbox Wiki - MOUNT

[MrPopo]

The answer you're looking for is yes, it still wants the floppy even though you installed the game. It might be one of the games that used bad sectors on the floppy as copy protection.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Maybe Dosbox doesn't know about your A Drive?

Try adding this to the bottom line of dosbox.cfg
MOUNT A A:\ -t floppy

Oh wow, I didn't think to do this. I did mount the A drive, but only once - when I did the initial installation. Next time I try the game I'll Mount A and C, then try to the run the game's .exe file.

I'm traveling right now, so unfortunately I can't try tonight.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Maybe Dosbox doesn't know about your A Drive?

Try adding this to the bottom line of dosbox.cfg
MOUNT A A:\ -t floppy

If that doesn't work you can try making the disk into an image and mount it as a virtual a drive...

Use Winimage to create a floppy image file (eg. LSL.ima). Move the file into the root of your Dosbox game directory (eg. c:\dos\), then mount it (edit the dosbox.cfg file and add this line at the bottom)
imgmount a c:\dos\LSL.ima -t floppy
^ this should allow you to play it on your main computer as well if you copy the installation directory and image file onto it.

Dosbox Wiki - MOUNT

Update......

I still can't get the bastard to work!

I tried to run the game while mounting the A drive first. This time my floppy drive did "click", but nothing else happened.

Then I made an image of the floppy (thanks for informing me of WinImage, Anapan), and tried to use the image instead of the actual physical disk. Same results, got the "click", but that's it.

What's hilarious is that I know the disk image works because I can install the game from the it.

I just can't get past that damn copy protection screen.

Anyway, I give up for now. Larry is gonna live in the closet in my "games I can't play" pile along with my Amiga disks.

[Anapan]

Don't give up yet; Sounds like after you made the image file you were still mounting your physical A drive instead of the floppy image.
In any case, there's many DOS game cracking programs available - I recall Neverlock, Crackaid, Rawcopy and Locksmith off the top of my head. Go to any decent abandonware site and grab one or more of those programs to patch the copy protection out and play your game.
... oh! I searched to see which one supports LSL and came across this:

Leisure Suit Larry's adult protection wasn't so useful once you worked out that Ctrl+Alt+X bypassed the whole lot...