First off, this game rocks! Secondly, I think when you put the drain or something similar in you don't actually see it there. And for all the problems in installing/playing it, try this:
1.Get DOSBOX.
2. Make sure you have every file needed to run the game
3. Put the game somewhere like right in yout hard drive, such as the path would be C:/lifeanddeath2 so when you mount it all you type is "mount x c:/lifeanddeath2" and it will work.
4. If this fails, make sure you have a compatible system.
I have tried these and after months of this game not working, I finally achieved sucess with DOSBOX. Hope this helped!