Gaming without discs

Sick of always searching for your gamediscs? Or do you want to play games on your laptop somewhere else without taking your whole collection with you? If you have sufficient harddisc space, these troubles are over. By making iso files of your gamediscs, and using the right applications, you will never have to use your discs again. And the great thing about this trick, is that you won’t need to alter your game files, so you won’t have trouble patching!

First of all: is this legal? I don’t really know for sure, but it seems to be legal with some games by the "fair usage" part of the terms of service (you know, the enormous face of text you always skip reading when installing your game). This should mean that it’s legal as long you’ve purchased the game, and you use copies of THAT game (so not downloaded ones). However, here’s a quick note:

Note 1: YOU SHOULD NOT USE THIS GUIDE IF YOU THINK OR IF YOU KNOW THAT THIS IS ILLEGAL IN YOUR COUNTRY WITH YOUR SOFTWARE.
Note 2: yes, it’s ALWAYS illegal to download iso’s of games.

The reason for this note: don’t do illegal things, you always harm somebody when you do. That’s also a reason to use this trick in stead of cracking, cracking your games is ALWAYS illegal. Well, that’s probably clear enough, let’s move on.

Because we’re going to make iso’s from the discs, you need to have software that can do this. If you don’t have such software, ImgBurn is free and should work, but you can also use Alcohol 52% or Alcohol 120% which seem to give slightly better results. The 52% version can be downloaded as freeware (with a nice toolbar…) or you can download a trial of one of the two app’s.

Because it DOES matter if you make an image of a CD or a DVD, I will start my guide with the CD because it has a better succes rate, and end it with the DVD.

• Put the disc in your disc drive, and ignore the auto start (click it away or something)

Making an image of your CD…

… with ImgBurn

1. Open ImgBurn
2. Close all unneeded background applications (this will improve your image)
3. Press "Create image file from disc"
4. Set your readspeed to 1×/1×  and change your destination to where you want your iso file. Decheck "Add to write queue when done". (view the settings)
5. Press "Read" and don’t use your computer during the reading process for a better result.
6. gratz, you’ve got your image!

… with Alcohol 52%

1. Open Alcohol 52%
2. Open the "make-image wizard"
3. At "Datatype" you should choose the protection of your gamedisc, probably SafeDisc or SecuROM (you can check this with protection id if you want). This isn’t needed in most cases though…
4. Close all background applications that are not usefull for creating images.
5. Click "next"
6. Choose the location where you want to safe your image file and choose the name of your image file
7. Press Start and don’t use your computer for a better result
8. gratz, you’ve got your image!

.. with your favorite img make application

1. Open your favorite application
2. Open the option to create an image from a disc
3. Close all unnecessary background programs
4. Set your readspeed as slow as possible
5. Make the image, and don’t use your computer during the process to get the best result

Making an image of your DVD

… with ImgBurn
It’s just the same as making the CD with this application, but it won’t work in most cases, there’s a better succes rate with Alocohol 52%/120%

… with Alcohol 52%

1. Open Alcohol 52%
2. Open the "make-image wizard"
3. At "Datatype" you should choose the protection of your gamedisc, probably SafeDisc or SecuROM (you can check this with protection id if you want).
4. Set reading speed to 1×
5. Close all background applications that are not usefull for creating images.
6. Click "next"
7. Choose the location where you want to safe your image file and choose the name of your image file
8. Press Start and don’t use your computer for a better result
9. gratz, you’ve got your image!

 … with your favorite img make application
You probably know best…remember that low reading speeds and minimal CPU usage will lead to a better result.

Now you’ve got your image, you can use it as a normal disc if you "mount" the image. You need software for this, and I do recommend Daemon Tools because it’s the best mounting tool out on the web.

Mounting your image with Daemon Tools

1. Open "Daemon Tools lite", an icon will appear in the lower right corner.
   
2. Right click the icon and go to "Virtual CD/DVD-ROM" -> "Change number of stations" -> enable at least one station
3. Right click the icon -> emulation -> turn all options ON
4. Again right click the icon -> "Virtual CD/DVD-ROM" but now go to the newly created disc station, probably "device x: E:/ etc." -> Mount Image.
5. Select the iso file you’ve created in the steps before
6. Your disc will now be loaded, and you’re ready to go. Just open your game, and you can play it without your original disc only using your image file.

Troubleshooting

• Sometimes the application will detect that you’re using an image in stead of your own disc and won’t work. It will help to have the latest version of Daemon Tools, and it will help to have all emulation tools enabled.
• If this isn’t sufficient enough you should look HERE and download YASU or securom loader. You should use these tools AFTER you’ve mounted your image.
• If THAT doesn’t work, maybe your image isn’t good enough or the protection of the disc is to new for the emulation tools, you should google a bit or just wait…
• Remember: you will have the highest succes rate with CD’s of OLD games… new games that are patched regulary will probably not work if you don’t put an extreme effort in it.

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