Question is there a way to copy my old game CDs?

[parsimonius]

What options do I have? I bought several RPG games back in the late 90s and early 2000s and continue replaying them. The CDs are reaching their physical end of life soon, being over 20 years old, so I'm trying to get my ducks in a row to replace the physical media (CDs) with new ones that should last for just as long. I have no real interest in buying the new "modern" versions of them due to changed game content between then and now. Nor do I plan to stream (?) them from a service like Valve, Steam(?) for privacy and security reasons.

The games were originally made by Wizards of the Coast, Bioware and Bethesda Software (Wizardry, BG/ToTSC, BG2/ToB, IWD IWD2. NWN, NWN2, Planescape Torment). I think only Bethesda Software is in business now d.b.a. Bethsoft. Do any of them offer a CD replacement program for old CDs nearing their EOL?

 

[Eximo]

No one offers replacements as far as I am aware. Steam is a not a streaming service. They sell digital copies of games that you are then licensed to use. They are large enough that they aren't likely to go away any time soon, but that is up to if you want to repurchase old games through them, or other services like good old games (gog.com).

Game streaming is when the game is run on hardware other than your own, and the video is sent to you over the internet. These are usually subscription services.

Most common practice is to back them up as ISO files on a hard drive or solid state disc. Then you just mount the ISO as a virtual drive. Windows supports ISO mounting directly now.

You still need a tool to make the ISO files. I've most recently used a tool called ImgBurn.

How to Create ISO Files From Discs on Windows, Mac, and Linux

An ISO file is a complete disc image of a CD or DVD bundled into a single file.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[BFG-9000]

If they are still readable on at least one drive, then you could make copies now.

I have never liked to use original discs so have always used a copy, even back in the 90s when there were only 2X CD burners. As a result the originals are all still pristine (I do understand that some original discs can suffer from bit-rot and become unreadable even if they still look perfect, but this seems to be more of an issue with movies, especially from Warner Home Video)

Much to my surprise, I recently found those 30-year old burned CDs are still perfectly readable today. Back then I went through a lot of CD-Rs and relegated the brands with high error rates on my equipment to music mixes for the car, where they could last as short as one summer. Dyes are less heat stable than pressed discs, but in cool temperatures they seem to last for decades.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Do any of them offer a CD replacement program for old CDs nearing their EOL?

no.
if any are still offering these titles, it would be through a service like Steam. which you don't seem interested in.
but, they would make you pay for them again anyway even if they did offer a direct download option.

games like Diablo II: Resurrected are actually a good option to repurchase though. much better than the original with the option to actually switch back and forth between the OG and the remake.

@Eximo has offered what appears to be the best option for you;
just create images of all of the discs and back them up on some digital media(external drive, etc).
you can store the original discs away somewhere safe, use the images when necessary, and only pull the OGs back out to re-do the process if the new storage media happens to fail someday.

one thing i would wonder though,
can these old 90s era CD based games even be played on a modern OS?
all those i used to have needed the CD loaded to read data directly while playing and i haven't seen a game use this method for decades now.

 

[John Chesterfield]

As said above, make disc images. With a lot of 90s games, back then you could use something like Daemon Tools to mount the image and the game would run as it'd effectively 'see' the CD was present.

 

[John Chesterfield]

Then you just mount the ISO as a virtual drive. Windows supports ISO mounting directly now.

So it's even easier to do now, that's something I didn't know about Windows.

 

[gggplaya]

I use POWERISO to mount. It's easy, just right click on the ISO file and select MOUNT. It'll mount it as a CD drive and you use it just like you did before.

As said before, I use IMGBURN to convert to a CD to an ISO file.

If you're running the ISO from an SSD, you'll also have the advantage of much faster loading times over a traditional cd drive.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Daemon Tools

There's a blast from the past! Legendary software for what it did! Still going, but don't use it anymore.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I use POWERISO to mount. It's easy, just right click on the ISO file and select MOUNT. It'll mount it as a CD drive and you use it just like you did before.

As said before, I use IMGBURN to convert to a CD to an ISO file.

If you're running the ISO from an SSD, you'll also have the advantage of much faster loading times over a traditional cd drive.

Another quality tool!

 

[ex_bubblehead]

How do you plan to get past any copy prevention measures encoded on the discs? Yes this was a thing.

 

[faalin]

Ive used alcohol 120 to rip all my old cd/dvd games to ISO images, also have a notepad file with all the CD keys for them.

Back in the day for windows 7 i would use daemon tools to mount the iso images to play. Windows 10 and 11 will mount them by themself now without any software.

 

[stonecarver]

On those games that give an I/O error when ripping off the CD/ DVD game disks I just darken every file on the disk and right click and send to zip file.

The beauty of doing that is the OS says nope can't do that on a locked CD/DVD and gives you an option to send it to the desktop.

You end up with the contents in a folder on the desktop in a non ISO file. From there keep it that way or than make it into an ISO.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

I think it goes without saying that if this thread strays down the path toward illicit activities, such as bypassing copy protections and such this thread will disappear without a trace and those guilty will be severely dealt with. This is the only warning that will be issued.