I know there's a way to do this but I don't know how. I searched this forum but didn't come up with anything, probably because I don't know what to search for. Right now I'm "finally" playing Rhem 2 but the game disc constantly spins during the game. Is there a way to install the game that I don't have to have the disc in the drive? Beyond that, games like Riven have several discs that you have to swap out during the game. How can you get away from having to do that? I would assume that the answer is to copy all files to the hard drive but how would the game know where to look for the files?

I'm doing a "seasonal" replay of Dracula, The Last Sanctuary and chuckle every time I have to switch the ONE CD!

As far as I know, a no-cd patch is the only way you can do this. You may be able to copy the contents of the disk to a folder on your hard drive and try to install from there too. Jenny knows much more about this than I do, so hopefully she will have a better suggestion for you.

Riven is easy compared to most. At least with the original version, you just copy the files in the Data folders on all the Riven CD's to the Data folder inside your Riven folder on your hard drive. There is no disc check.

I think RHEM 2 has a disc check though. You'd have to create a disc image of the CD and mount it using a disc-image-mounting program like ***Alcohol***, ***VirtualCDROM***, or others. Once properly mounted, the disc image of the CD will show up with a drive letter the same way a CD drive would, and you install and play from there. If you've already installed and got a game going, the driver letter may or may not have to match the letter of the drive you installed it from. It depends on the game. Most seem to want the same drive letter.

Except for VirtualCDROM, which is free from Microsoft, be careful of trial versions of image-mounting programs because they can contain adware.

I've been using Virtual CloneDrive for over 5 years with no problems or unwanted side effects. It's freeware and supports up to 15 virtual drives at the same time.

Thanks everyone. My machine came with a disc utility suite so I was able to create a disc image and mount it but Rhem 2 looks for the game disc in the drive that I installed it from (F:). I'm already well into the game so I looked for a game configuration file but didn't find one. It looks like I'll have to change the drive letter on my F: drive to something else and assign F: to the virtual drive.

Drac, that's a lot of Dracula replays. I know you were playing The Last Sanctuary back in 2003 or so. I still enjoy the game too.

Yup, I remember those good old days! I met Hawka when she was trying in vain to escape the water in Carfax!

Cue, take a look at the following on your installation of Rhem 2:
Rhem2_E\DATA\DPOT files 001b.txt - 010b.txt

These files hold the save data for your game, if present. At the start of each b.txt file will be something like:
[#A1: "A01Cx", #A2: "g:\DATA_CD\NR07.dxr"
This tells the game which drive must be used to find the text, .mov files, etc.
Since you already have saved games, you should see the CDROM drive letter that you used when playing the game. These would need to be changed to the letter used by your virtual drive.

There is also the issue of the copyright protection. Not all virtual drives are equivalent. With Alcohol 120%, the game does not care which drive letter is used for CD #2. I found a message from 2007 that said the writer had to use a virtual drive letter in sequence with the last hard drive on his system.

What you could do is save the Rhem2_E\DATA\DPOT directory contents somewhere, uninstall the game, reinstall it from your virtual drive, and copy back the DPOT directory. If the game will then start, good. You will just need to change the drive letters in the b.txt files to match your virtual drive letter.

Thanks, Robert. That's the file I was looking for. I assumed it would be called something like Rhem2.ini or something. I was able to get the game going by reassigning the drive letters. Now I'm mapping out all of those electric runs behind the wall with the boat pictures!