Disc Imaging Software

I'm looking for a way to save my disc drive, and would like to find some free disc imaging software that will work well whilst gaming.

Any advice?

 

Daemon Tools Lite (freeware version for private use, no need for the Pro version) lets you create images from your CD/DVDs and also creates a virutal drive to mount the created images.

But most games have a copy protection so this will not work.

 

I never had trouble to mount any game with DT, with or without protection. I use ImgBurn for ISOs and DT to mount theses.

 

Disc imagining in terms of backing up your HDD?

In that regard, Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

 

^I'm thinking more in terms of being able to play games without using my disc drive. I don't mean for pirated games, just more so that I can save it. If I recall, games often save the games music on the disc and don't save them to the HDD. Or?

 

Deamon Tools perhaps.
The problem is, many games require the original disc inserted as part of the copy protection. For some older games, their manufacturers published patches that disable this requirement. So have a look on their websites.

Additionally, some copy protections of games check the presence of emulated optical drives and will then refuse to load the game.

That said, life is often easier for the pirates compared to those who legally bought the game

Michael

 

For future reference, it may be more clear to others when you refer to your disc drive as the Optical Drive, as some of us were thinking you might have meant your disc drive HDD.

I've been using Virtual Clone Drive to mount my game discs, as well as my backed up DVD and bluray movies. Works fantastically.

I use ISO Recorder to rip the disc image for games. A few games won't work this way. X-Men Legens II, for example fails at the end of the ripping process due to copyright protection. And... Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has a security feature that won't allow the disc to be read/played from virtualization, requiring the physical disc to be inserted. Nicely enough, SW:TFU II does not have this copy protection feature installed and works fine from ISO.

 

There are ways to do this. The simplest involve downloading a modified .exe that doesn't check for the disc. While technically legal so long as you own the game, you'll have to google the specifics as we're not supposed to discuss them here.

On a side note, if you buy the digital download version of a game, it's not only cheaper 99% of the time, but doesn't have any annoying disc checks either.