Alcohol 120% without CD Drive?

[chenw]

Hey all,

I know this sound a little pedantic, but does anyone know if it is possible to get Alcohol 120% to install and run without having an actual CD drive installed on the rig?

The rig in question is a HTPC, and I am debating how to use the 12.7mm drive bay (slim ODD or a 2.5" SSD/HDD cage), but I would like to know if Alcohol 120% can be used only for its emulation features, or does some part of the program actively require a working CD-Drive.

If it at all matters, I will be dual booting Windows 10 and XP.

Thanks!

 

[Jan_26]

For emulation only you could be using cheaper (or free if you can live with advert bar) variant Alcohol 52%. It can do everything except actual burning on physical discs.

 

[grana92]

I'm pretty sure it can be installed without the CD drive, but if it's only for emulation purposes may I suggest Daemon Tools Lite? It's free mounting software..

 

[chenw]

The Alcohol I am using is the Free Edition. Free as long as its personal use only and is limited to 2 drives emulation and 1 drive burn, neither of which I have any intention of exceeding (the latter especially so).

Can't beat free 😛

 

[chenw]

I'm pretty sure it can be installed without the CD drive, but if it's only for emulation purposes may I suggest Daemon Tools Lite? It's free mounting software..

Alcohol 120% is also free, and I have had better luck emulating drives on Alcohol 120% than I did with Daemon.

I know of at least 1 game (Wolfenstein 2009) that does not work when mounted on Daemon but works perfectly when mounted on Alcohol.

 

[chenw]

EDIT: I will double check when I get home tonight to ascertain what exact Alcohol I am using, as I double checked the Free version but it doesn't actually emulate copyright protection, which my version does.

 

[HEXiT]

your version doesnt emulate copy protection it bypasses it. thats the whole point of that app.
if you need to emulate a dvd drive then just use the 1 that ships with windows you can mount your iso's with that without issue.
it will also allow you to mount rars and they will act like iso's in that you wont need to decompress them to get access to the files.

 

[chenw]

Unfortunately, due to the fact that I used Alcohol to copy the discs, none of my CD/DVD images are in ISO format.

I gave up on that format a long time ago. I haven't used it for literally anything since because it's simply not usable for backing up game discs.

Also, ISO format, AFAIK, does not play nice with dual mode CDs (ones that writes data on Track 1 and music on the outer tracks), which some of my CDs use.

 

[James Mason]

Windows 10 has built in ISO mounting to virtual drives.
I don't backup CDs/DVDs really anymore so I don't know about whether it plays nice with dual mode, but it's just a container for the files so, i'm not too sure how much that matters.
But bypassing copy protection is something you'd need software for.

 

[chenw]

Well my motherboard isn't due in for another 2 weeks and all of the parts should be readily available (barring the ITX GTX 960, not sure if I want to preemptively buy it), so I'll report back once I put everything together and have it tested.

 

[Carnaxus]

"Alcohol 120%" has got to be one of the least relevant software names I have ever seen...

That said, I've never had any issues with Daemon; to each his/her own, o'course.

 

[Jan_26]

"Alcohol 120%" has got to be one of the least relevant software names I have ever seen...

That said, I've never had any issues with Daemon; to each his/her own, o'course.

Indeed... Back in the days I tried both, ended up with reinstalling windows after Daemon, but it's so far in past I don't remember what it caused, plus Alcohol easily virtualized CDs Deamon Tools couldn't handle. Days of needing either are far in the past though, all the games these days you simply buy digitally on Steam or GoG.

 

[chenw]

Sorry for necro'ing, but a big point of actually using rig is for games that are no longer sold digitally (Wolfenstein 2009 for example) or games that were never sold digitally, hence why I needed a CD mounting software. (I have tried multiple VMs with multiple OSes, no combination worked at all)

Vast majority of my game purchases these days are indeed digital, but some games simply do not have digital versions, especially for games that are produced locally, so I have been using CD-mounting tools and ODDs in every computer I have built out of necessity.

The aforementioned Wolfenstein 2009 was when I found that Daemon tools was wholly inadequate, the game would not run with it, but would run with Alcohol.

 

[HEXiT]

thats because your mounting it with the wrong drive type. also wolfenstine was never released online as a stand alone iso.
it could be downloaded but required you to sign into steam. and currently bethesda own the rights to it.
so what your now asking is how to bypass the drm that was on the wolfenstine cd which is something toms doesnt allow.

sorry.

 

[chenw]

I own the physical disc with a valid code, as I bought it in a boxed version. The reason I want to mount the ISOs (which isn't just wolfenstein, and I own ALL the original physical disks of the ISOs I want to mount) is because I do not want to use the physical discs.

I never said I wanted to know how to bypass DRM on ANY game with Alcohol, all I wanted to know was if Alcohol was possible to install on systems without any actual ODDs.

Never in my posts did I ever discuss I am looking for help with circumventing DRM, unless asking for help with installing Alcohol is against DRM rules.

IF that is the case, the mods are free to delete the relevant posts and lock this thread, since I am not going to get the answer I am looking for.

 

[Carnaxus]

If Alcohol is a virtual disk drive program, I don't see why it would need a physical drive in order to work. Daemon Tools worked on my dad's old netbook, and that barely had two USB ports and an SD card slot.