Changing Hard Drive - Dont Want To Lose Games

Hi I have to upgrade my hard drive, but if I do I will lose all my games. I recently moved to uni and as my bro and I both play FM2008 and AOM i mounted them(think that is the right term) onto my hard drive. As i dont want to download illegal versions is there anyway of backing the games onto dvd so when i install the new hard drive i can play them again. I know this sounds a bit dodgy but i'm not trying to do anything illegal. Many Thanks

 

sorry to post again, but just to state i dont mind paying for the backup software

 

Problem is many games have registry settings, so some of them wont work without being re-installed

a lot of games create a user folder in My Documents, so you can usually backup saved games easily

to have access to the files nice and quickly why not buy one of those inexpensive hard drive usb enclosures? you can pick them up for about £10-15 ($20-30)
cheaper than backup software and extra storage once you have transferred everything

you can transfer your steam folder across if you have that, there are instructions on the steam website on what to do to activate it all without re-downloading

Good luck with your new HDD

 

if you mounted them, then you should have an iso image. Just back up the iso and remount them and should install as if off a regular CD or DVD.

 

Search for information on software called Alcohol or DaemonTools - these are examples of programs that let you make perfect backups of CDs and DVDs. This doesn't work with some games because there are always more complex copy-protection methods thought up, but with the appropriate settings for the right game (again, do a search for the settings needed for the particular game/games you want to back up) more often than not it works.

And if it doesn't make a perfect copy, it will make one good enough you can install the game with, it just might not accept the CD/DVD backup as the original and will not let you play. In that case, you can always search for help on that particular game.