Games backup

[diabol]

Hello everyone,
i've bought a few games and was wondering if there is a program around(free) that could permit me to copy those games for backup..do you know any?

 

[pauldh]

Alcohol 120% has a free trial. Very good at backing up Games and also for playing them off a virtual Dive. I play almost every game off a virtual drive and leave the original Game CD safely in the Box it came in. Also works wonders for backing up the kids software before they scratch up the CD's, although Nero can do most of those anyway.


<A HREF="http://www.alcohol120.com/" target="_new">http://www.alcohol120.com/</A>



ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[Stinkfinger]

Can you provide some easy to undertsand instructions on how to use this thing. I also read something about Daemontools. Is this necessary or will 120 be all i need.
Im interested in trying this virtual drive thing but what i need to find is easy to follow instructions.
I tried 120 a long time ago but it was difficult to understand. For me atleast.

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger

 

[diabol]

I tried to copy morrowind but started showing errors in reading discs... Any idea?

 

[phsstpok]

Head over to the forums at <A HREF="http://www.cdfreaks.com" target="_new">www.cdfreaks.com</A>. Read all the Stickies.

Unreadable sectors is just part of copy protection.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 07/13/04 06:45 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Stinkfinger]

Man they sure do make things difficult. So many different types of stuff. Thanks for the link. I'l let you know what happens in about 6 years when i figure it out
Thx again

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger

 

[phsstpok]

It's not that hard. Alcohol 120% seems to be the popular and most up-to-date application these days. Not too long ago it was CloneCD. Game Jack was probably the easiest to use. Now people seem to be using various combinations of drives, one reader and one burner, and a combination of applications, one program to read images, another to write images. It all depends on the copy protection used for each particular game. It's still not that difficult (or so I hear).

We can't talk about specific methods because of the USA Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Hopefully the courts will decide that the Fair Use law will take precedent.

Good luck.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[Stinkfinger]

Thanks for not telling me the things you allready didnt tell me. I Just have no patience trying to read and find everything, but i will try, Thanks

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger

 

[phsstpok]

Glad not to be of help.

Seriously, read the "stickies" in the general Recording Software forum and the Alcohol 120% sub-forum at CDFreaks.com. These will give you all the how-to basics. Next, search the Alcohol 120% forum on a particular game. Chances are someone has already posted on how to back it up.

If you feel ambitious take a look the Copy Protection forum (very technical). Many of the people in that forum couldn't care less about games. The challenge to them is understanding how the new protections work (and how to defeat them).

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[Stinkfinger]

LMAO,
Thanks again for nothing, I will check them out cause im mainly interested in installing the games on a virtual drive. If its supposed to be that much faster then its worth some research and reading.
Does it help with FPS or just loading the games? oh WAIT I WILL READ UP ON IT. This is a classified mission.

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger

 

[pauldh]

Most games don't play off the CD anyway, they just check the disc as a form of copy protection. But what I like about virtual drives is that you can have many of them setup on your computer and they are treated like a regular cd-rom drive. I have about 8 of them and keep all the current games I play in a virtual drive, with no need to scramble for the game CD's when I want to play. I BUY ALL the games I play, but I hate swapping game CD's and I like the original disc on my shelf safely in the box.

Anyway, yes those forums will tell you all you need to know. You'll find Way more help there than I or others here could ever give.


Use <A HREF="http://www.aray-software.com" target="_new">a-ray scanner</A> to read what type of copy protection the game has. Then set the Alcohol 120 settings to the type it finds. Then make the image. After that, mount the image to your virtual drive and that's it. It doesn't work for every game. And your image making success will vary depending on the CD-RW you have. But, It won't take you long to learn.




ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[phsstpok]

Games generally load textures from the hard drive to save time, anyway.

The virtual drives aren't always faster. They often emulate 48X CDROMS, slow speed and all. I'm not sure why. I assumed it had to do with copy protections but I don't know that for a fact.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[Stinkfinger]

Thanks all for not helping me with stuff i shouldnt know.
If the games load from the hard drive anyway then im not worried cause i have AMD 64, 3200+, 1 gig corsair and 74 gig Raptor, Radeon 9800 pro and other stuff.

But im gonna, hypathetically check this stuff out and see if i can back up my Legally purchased games. It would be nice to know how to do this stuff, Hypathetically speaking of course

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Stinkfinger on 07/16/04 10:03 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[pauldh]

Seriously, I thought we did help. With A-Ray Scanner, Alcohol 120% and that forum link, you have more info than you need to backup your software and run virtual drives. Just look into it and you'll see it isn't hard at all.



ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[Stinkfinger]

Oh believe me when i say, you guys did help a great deal.
I was just going on with phsstpoks' comment about not being able to go into details and just made this like a hypathetical thread since copy protection is such a big deal and all. tried making humor, ya know.

I did try it last nite with the virtual drive and came up with this emulator error or some crap. But i just have no patience with sitting here and reading, but i will try.

Everytime i read more, i find some other tool needed to accomplish this task.
Thanks again for all your help.

Everyone here at Toms Rawk!!!


Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger