Oblivion mini image?!

[DarkG]

As far as i understood creating a mini image works through using the image assistant of alcohol for example and then immediatly breaking off the operation and keeping the small generated file.Now with oblivion not having a real copy protection on it, i thought creating a mini image would be even easier.
Here is what happened sofar, i installed alcohol and went on to create a mini image which promptly worked just fine. Today however when trying to run the game i got a message to insert the cd, so i unmounted and remounted the image with no result then i noticed that unlike yesterday the image was showing a size of 0 KB for all the conntent files in the image.... now i now yesterday that this wasn't the case. No problem i thought, i will just create another mini image, but the result is exactly the same, the generated file when mounted shows 0 KB for files in the image and that didn't change even when i created a new mini image that was 20 megs large, it still said 0 KB on all files.
The only difference between yesterday and today is that i now have rebooted the pc after that alcohol install, so could it be possible that alcohol installed some drivers that now after restart are working and messing things up? Or am i making some mistake? OR forgetting something??!

Any help would be appreciated!!

DarkG

[Terramex]

Actually a mini image shouldn't be capable of running the game: sector 2152577 is also needed for the check (at least with the german release). I used BW5Tweaker to create my maxi image (LINK), Gaps: Sector 267 to 2152576, 2152578 to 2154751

[JoelEllison]

I'm just curious, do people monitor what sectors a game reads during its startup check? Using a tool like ********al or bushound? Or something simpler like trial and error with BW5Tweaker?

[Terramex]

In the case of Oblivion it was partly trial & error + visual search for suspicious entries (in 2152577 there is "*GEAR UDF" and "*UDF FreeEASpace"); concerning monitoring watch THIS thread

[DarkG]

How should i put it? I am newbie not stupid.. not implying you said that, only mentioning it so you know i know what i am talking about!
After mounting the mini image the first time the game started and I was able to play it. That is what happened.

But that isn't so much the problem I have, my problem is That this very same image all of a sudden showed 0 KB values for the files inside it, and every mini image i created since also shows 0KB values. Which doesn't make sense to me!

[Underheaven]

another computer

Try loading your mini -images on another windows computer. If you don't have an access to another windows PC, I'd recommend using a clean virtual machine (virtual server r2).

[DarkG]

I can try on another PC, but that doesn't explain that other mini images do work fine here, or that the size of the files in the image I was able to use changed from the correct size to over all 0 KB.

[DarkG]

Ok i tried 2 different mini images on another pc, that has no alcohol on it. the one that is working here is also working there, but, what i didn't expect, the oblivion one is showing 0 KB for size there as well(though i could swear every thing was ok with this very same image the first time i tried it out)! So am i making something fundamentally wrong when creating the image now?

As i understood it, all i have to do is run the image creating assistant in alcohol and then immediatly canceling the operation while keeping the resulting files. That wrong ?

[Underheaven]

Quickmount

Another way to make a mini-image is to take a full image and then use Quickmount.

[DarkG]

Funny that you say that! :P
Cause that was actually the first way i tried to do the mini image, though strangely it didn't make a difference whether i chose the starforce or the safedisk option, both resulting images were unmountable by DT. Of course i first checked that the full image was working, which it was!

[Underheaven]

Re: QuickMount

Oh yea, I just forgot that with Oblivion it will check the middle of the disc, so a mini-image wouldn't work even if DAEMON Tools could mount it. But I wonder why QuickMount didn't work for you.

[DarkG]

Well what i originally said was that the alcohol mini image DID work, on the day i made it. it was only yesterday that all of a sudden the size value of all files in the image was set to 0 KB.

Now as i understand whether the mini image would/should pass the check or not, it still would have to show the correct sizes for the files, which it doesn't anymore. And that bit is what i am trying to find a solution for!

[Terramex]

After mounting the mini image the first time the game started and I was able to play it. That is what happened.

I have the german version, maybe there are different checks
Sorry, can't help with your real problem.

[DarkG]

It's the thought that counts! So thanks for the effort any way!

Though i have the UK version of the game, i don't really think they would do different checks on it than the german version.

But all checks put aside now, as i said, what interests me is why i don't seem to be able to make a mini image at all (at least one where you find that the files have the correct size after breaking the operation of alcohol). I thought the TOC with the file sizes was/is one of the first bits that get written in an image, which is the reason mini images work in the first place...

[Underheaven]

not related to Oblivion

Is this not related to Oblivion, ie other dvd mini-images you make still show 0kb in explorer?