Hi,
I tried to post this question to the Daemon Tools forum, but it says they are "closed" to registration, which seems very odd (anyone know why?). Anyway, I'm posting here instead. If there's a better place, please let me know - thanks (also, I decided on the "PC Gaming" category, but please let me know if a different category would be better and I will repost there)
I'm looking for a clear explanation on how to use my old CD games as .iso files (or whatever other image format will work). In particular, I have several games that run the CD continually as I play. I'm planning on using an older laptop, which has no built-in drive, but I do have a little external drive. It is very loud and I do not want to wear it out, but I have plenty of hard drive space and therefore would vastly prefer to mount an image file. Also, many of my game CD's are now very old and so an additional reason for all of this is that I also want the CD images as backups.
I already know how to use D.Tools to mount .iso images that are already created, but I have questions related to creating the images. Also, many of these use CD audio and I have questions about how to get that to work (both in terms of creating the image and then mounting it).
I'm sure this question has been answered somewhere already, and I apologize if this is somewhere obvious, but I've been looking for many hours for the answer and I'm not particularly good at searches so I thought maybe it would be best just to ask directly. If there's already a post answering this, please point me to it - thanks
So to clarify, a first, more-specific question is what format should I use for what I understand to be called "mixed-mode" CD's? Meaning, those with both data but that also have CD audio tracks. My understanding from what I read online is that .iso files do not have the capability to store the audio portion of the CD so it would not be the proper format to use. I see reference to some other file types, but no clear explanation about which one is best and most compatable with D.Tools.
Secondly, what free software (preferably that will work on XP) allows converting them to that format? Is there an option somewhere in D.Tools? I used version 3.47 a number of years ago for more simple purposes and am somewhat familiar with it so it would be a good choice if it would work (but I don't recall having seen an option to create a disk image). Also, I think some of these CD's are copy-protected in some way or another so the software would have to be able to handle that (I seem to remember I tried a version of Nero on one of them years ago which refused to work for that reason).
Thirdly, I recall some research from years ago that I did mentioned that the hardware reading the CD could matter, as well, some not being able to read hidden portions of CD's or some such (this related to copy protection issues). If I need to buy a specific CD drive that handles this (again, preferably works with XP), please point me to it, thanks.
The limitations I have is that the machine I have been using for these games is WinXP (I have my reasons so don't want to get into that), I'm looking for something free (including no ads), and I'm looking for something light (I strongly dislike bloated software with messy installs, prefering a lot of older, free software as long as it works well). The reason for free isn't so much the cost, but rather that I've found time and time again that the best free software tends to be more well-designed (far less bloated, doesn't have a bunch of unnecessary junk running in the background all the time, etc.) The problem is finding good free software; I use almost all free software, but finding it over the years has taken a great deal of research (one of the reasons I'm asking for advise). That said, if a commercial package is the only option, I'll go that route, I would just vastly prefer not to do so. I remembering hating what was at the time the latest version of Nero, one of the commercial software packages I did try using, because it was bloated and messy and for all of that wouldn't even convert that CD I mentioned earlier.
I'd really appreciate any help with this - thanks (and again apologize if this is already clearly answered elsewhere - I simply didn't find it)
I tried to post this question to the Daemon Tools forum, but it says they are "closed" to registration, which seems very odd (anyone know why?). Anyway, I'm posting here instead. If there's a better place, please let me know - thanks (also, I decided on the "PC Gaming" category, but please let me know if a different category would be better and I will repost there)
I'm looking for a clear explanation on how to use my old CD games as .iso files (or whatever other image format will work). In particular, I have several games that run the CD continually as I play. I'm planning on using an older laptop, which has no built-in drive, but I do have a little external drive. It is very loud and I do not want to wear it out, but I have plenty of hard drive space and therefore would vastly prefer to mount an image file. Also, many of my game CD's are now very old and so an additional reason for all of this is that I also want the CD images as backups.
I already know how to use D.Tools to mount .iso images that are already created, but I have questions related to creating the images. Also, many of these use CD audio and I have questions about how to get that to work (both in terms of creating the image and then mounting it).
I'm sure this question has been answered somewhere already, and I apologize if this is somewhere obvious, but I've been looking for many hours for the answer and I'm not particularly good at searches so I thought maybe it would be best just to ask directly. If there's already a post answering this, please point me to it - thanks
So to clarify, a first, more-specific question is what format should I use for what I understand to be called "mixed-mode" CD's? Meaning, those with both data but that also have CD audio tracks. My understanding from what I read online is that .iso files do not have the capability to store the audio portion of the CD so it would not be the proper format to use. I see reference to some other file types, but no clear explanation about which one is best and most compatable with D.Tools.
Secondly, what free software (preferably that will work on XP) allows converting them to that format? Is there an option somewhere in D.Tools? I used version 3.47 a number of years ago for more simple purposes and am somewhat familiar with it so it would be a good choice if it would work (but I don't recall having seen an option to create a disk image). Also, I think some of these CD's are copy-protected in some way or another so the software would have to be able to handle that (I seem to remember I tried a version of Nero on one of them years ago which refused to work for that reason).
Thirdly, I recall some research from years ago that I did mentioned that the hardware reading the CD could matter, as well, some not being able to read hidden portions of CD's or some such (this related to copy protection issues). If I need to buy a specific CD drive that handles this (again, preferably works with XP), please point me to it, thanks.
The limitations I have is that the machine I have been using for these games is WinXP (I have my reasons so don't want to get into that), I'm looking for something free (including no ads), and I'm looking for something light (I strongly dislike bloated software with messy installs, prefering a lot of older, free software as long as it works well). The reason for free isn't so much the cost, but rather that I've found time and time again that the best free software tends to be more well-designed (far less bloated, doesn't have a bunch of unnecessary junk running in the background all the time, etc.) The problem is finding good free software; I use almost all free software, but finding it over the years has taken a great deal of research (one of the reasons I'm asking for advise). That said, if a commercial package is the only option, I'll go that route, I would just vastly prefer not to do so. I remembering hating what was at the time the latest version of Nero, one of the commercial software packages I did try using, because it was bloated and messy and for all of that wouldn't even convert that CD I mentioned earlier.
I'd really appreciate any help with this - thanks (and again apologize if this is already clearly answered elsewhere - I simply didn't find it)