Just wondering how to make an exact copy of a game to put in the CD drive so I don't scratch the original CD's

http://www.alcohol-soft.com/

you cant because their are almost always errors on the disc. hidden files or something that is missed.. this problem is usualy solved by a "crack" that hacks the executable to run wihtout a disc, or by using deamon tools or a similar program to run the game by confusing the dettections

It seems the only way is to use the same CD... which sucks... I guess alcohol doesn't cause errors, but you know how it says "scicsp service" or something, I think it has issues with things, because I remember it also saying something about debuggers

Any info?

You can make copies of games but it can get very confusing. If you get it all togeather maybe you can help me out some time. First of all, its your legal right to be able to copy your own game.
go here and start reading: (let me know how ya make out)

http://www.gamecopyworld.com/

if the link dont work, just google game copy world

and look on the left hand side for:
Backup Protected CDs
CD/DVD Protections
NewBie Hints


I hope yopu have a lot of CD's to make into coasters :-) &
good luck with saving your CD's from getting scratched

make that the right hand side for newbe's

Thanks, I'm gonna use that site from now on

There is a better way...


Instead of using downloaded applications (which almost always come from sites that have adware/spyware/browser hijacking/virus) to crack your main exe, and copying the entire disk, you can use mini images. Mini images are files that are exact copies of your disk, except they are much smaller in size, and they only contain about the first few percent of the disk. Games just detect your disk by reading very little data off of it, so you don't need to copy the entire disk. There are many pre-made mini images (also called mini disks, mini iso's) available online. Search google. It is pretty damn easy to make your own, too. I never did it, but I read the instructions and it seemed simple. I don't have a link, but you can google that too. When you finally obtain a mini image of the game you want to play, you need Daemon tools. Daemon tools is a piece of software that tells your computer that you have a CD/DVD drive, and it emulates them. You mount (load) your mini image into Daemon tools, and when the game checks for the data, it finds it. The best part about this is that you don't need to match up any game versions, and even if you update your game, it will still work.

Google: Daemon tools, download it.
Google: 'your game' mini image.
or
Google: how to make mini images

I agree with you on not using cracked .exe's (as they are known to change system files, if you don't believe me, I had the cracked .exe for halo and only got 20 servers, then I mounted the mini image and got over 400, perhaps they don't change system files directly but they mess with how th game works as I just explained)...

but daemon tools is not a good program, it doesn't even have a GUI, and it was crashing my PC...I do not advise anyone to use it...get alcohol 52% free instead.

And I already have all the mini images I need that I made myself, google how to make a safe disc mini image...

The reason I want to avoid using virtual drive programs is because of what they do to the system...mostly because FEAR combat kept giving me invalid game assets error and on the help site it said un-install any virtual drive programs, so I formatted and didn't install alcohol and it still got the errors..