Young and old, do consider helping the foolish; imaging PC games

[EnemyAirship]

Considering this is a forum devoted to console emulation and gaming in general, it would seem a bit odd for any game-related topic to arise within the "Open Topic" portion; however, there appears to be no PC emulation forum, as I am sure that would generate countless legal issues with the administrators of this fine forum, and no one wants that.

Being significantly more naive when it comes to the golden age of software imaging, an age gloriously devoid of the disc-checking and drive-scanning era in which we all now live, I would quite like to learn the methods of the ancient professionals on how to successfully image my old PC games and store them amongst my harddrive’s other fine contents, to occasionally play them without the need for the weathered discs from which the data was derived.

If any of you gentlemen would be kind enough to supply me the information suitable to my request, you will see no other as obliged as I.

[bcrew1375]

Wow, now THAT'S formal :p. Anyway, you want to back-up your PC games, right? If the game is on CD, that's easy enough. You can use a program called IsoBuster, or Alcohol 120%, to make a file that is an exact replica of a CD's data. You can then use a CD Emulator program to trick your computer into thinking there is a CD Drive with that CD in it. I use Alcohol 120% to emulate a CD/DVD drive. Most games will work fine with this, but there are some that won't(GTA III, for example). If a game won't work with an image, you can usually find a No-CD patch to make the game work anyway. I don't think the board rules would allow me to post links to those, since they are often used for piracy. Hope that answers your questions.

[EnemyAirship]

Thank you very much; though, I see that Alcohol 120% requires either purchase or the use of a demo. Would the feature you described above (drive emulation) work correctly with the demo version of the application, or is purchase necessary?

[s|rens]

Yes, the virtual drive does work with the demo, but the demo is only for 30 days (I think). You should try it first to see if you like it.

It is definitely worth a purchase though because it is the best burning program out there imo.

[ready2rumbelX]

You always have Daemon Tools (for example) to use for a virtual CD/DVD driver..plus it's free. :D (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/)

As for backing up CDs, you should check out the program CloneCD. You have to pay for it, but it is an amazing piece of software.

r2rX :D

[Gamer1]

alcohol 120% is much better imo than clonecd,

the only good free 1:1 cd backup i know that does a decent job is isobuster... but i don't know if the feature got disabled cuz it became shareware.

[EnemyAirship]

I will consider all of your recommendations and report as to which I have found most suitable. Thank you very much, fellows.

[EnemyAirship]

After testing the different combinations, I have likely found what all have already known, but will state my findings out of spite.

The obvious answer to the question posed in the original post is the wonderful Alcohol 120%, as it is a fine piece of imaging software while also being fully able to emulate a maximum of 31 drives; however, this is only suitable to those willing to spend fifty dollars for the program. The answer for the more fiscally disabled among us is the combination of Isobuster, an imaging program, and Daemon tools, a drive emulation program.

After testing these, I do believe I will be purchasing Alcohol 120%. Thank you, fellows, for introducing me to this fine application.

[Boltzmann]

Hey, I've nothing to say about the topic, since the question was already answered, but I do want to recognize EnemyAirship's fine writing style.

Your first posts is one of the best posts I've ever read ;)

[Kazuya]

And he should deserve a special nomination at the end of the year too :lol:

[Takmadeus]

Yeah.... congratulations EnamyAirship, you are one of the finest members.... your writing style is very polite, it makes it quite nice for us to read your posts :)

[netghost2.0]

Yes, it's refreshing to see a member write in complete sentences without any grammatical mistakes!

j00z r0x0r5 d00d!

[bcrew1375]

Come on, guys. You're going to embarass him ;). Seriously, EnemyAirship, your grammar and politeness levels are superb compared to the usual member :thumb:.

[Arpanet]

omg wtf r u taking abuot hes a total n00b lololololllzzz

Heh. Best use of the word "fellows" in a post EVER.

[Takmadeus]

Heh..... shall you not worry Enemy Airship, we art in need of more people like thou

[Cid Highwind]

Wow, that's something else than the average Engrish of the average n00b. Your post is a pleasure to read.

Back on topic:
I use Nero Burning Rom which also provides me a virtual CD-rom drive, though I don't use it very often. IIRC there are trial versions of Nero BR available, of which I don't know if they support that feature, since I use the full version which came with my CDR drive.

[wise_evian]

Problem with cd emulation is the fact that many games are coming out smarter :) and most virtual drives dont support such things yet. No-cd patches might as well be warez because they are nothing more than cracks regardless of how you use them.

[Cid Highwind]

Yeah I know some games do have problems, like FF7 PC simply asks me to insert the cd.... Maybe that's one of those games which only allows one drive to play it, and when you put it in another drive (a real one) it doesn't recognize it, I also had this problem with GTA 1