All four installation CDs, different copies of the game

[Finbar]

I posted probably a month and a half ago about how I was having problem with the software to play FFXI. Well, I finally managed to assemble four installation CDs. The only problem is they are not all from the same exact copy of the game. I understand that copyright protection is important and all, but between me and my brother we have bought 3 copies of the game and I really don't want to have to buy a fourth copy. Is there anyway that I can trick the installation program into thinking that all of my CDs are from the same copy of the game by copying the other CDs? My discs 1 and 2 are compatible, but 3 and 4 are not.

Keep in mind that this is not a warez post or anything, if you read what I am asking for it would be pretty obvious. I just really want to play the game and have gone to so much trouble trying to get it working that I've paid for a month of gametime and haven't even been able to use any of it.

[Pai Pai Master]

You don't have any friends who have the installation CDs? ._.

[tnt118]

I can't imagine that the installation program will recognize and prevent discs that weren't sold together from working together, but even so... What happens when you try to use discs 3 and 4? Do you get an error message?

This info may or may not be pertenant to your problem. I had some installation errors on one of the discs myself, where it couldn't read a .cab file from a disc. I think this was a moderatly widespread problem back at NA release. To install the game I copied the discs to the hard drive and installed from there, which worked fine. Here's how you do it:

Create a folder on your harddrive that can handle the 4 discs-worth of information. Start by copying the entire contents of disc 1 to that folder. When done, do the same thing with disc 2. Some of these files will be the same, and you'll be asked if you want to overwrite them. While I don't think it matters, I clicked "yes" to overwite each time it asked. Do the same with discs 3 and 4. When done, you'll have one gigantic installation folder on your harddrive. I'm fairly sure (but have never checked into it) that all these duplicate files are identical.

(Optional step: reload disk 1 and recopy all those files again. Personally I don't think it matters but I remember reading some people saying they did that to make it work).

Run the setup/install from harddrive and enjoy the game!

Hope this might help...

[JU571N]

Originally posted by tnt118
I can't imagine that the installation program will recognize and prevent discs that weren't sold together from working together, but even so... What happens when you try to use discs 3 and 4? Do you get an error message?

It's not that it recognizes disks that weren't sold togather, it's just that if they were purchased far apart they might be slightly different versions since they update when a major game update takes place. One may be 2.4.3 while the other is 2.4.6. My diablo II cds would install jsut fine even though they were different versions, but my WoW disks wouldn't. I (along with soo many other people) had scratched disks in the package causing installation errors. I eventually had to download the final beta release and use that.

I don't know of anywhere that has FFXI disks for download anymore, but you might try contacting SE to see if you can get replacements. For WoW you just had to pay shipping, and if it was within 90 days of purchase you could send the receipt in and have replacements sent free of charge.

[Susurrus]

I'm pretty sure there hasn't been version updates as far as the CDs go. You can check this because the updates of a newly sold game will be the same update as a game sold at release (both freshly installed of course).

SE needs to make CDs that hold the updates.

I think I'm gonna make one for myself for if I have to reformat or for whatever other reason reinstall the game.