I have some very old CDs, mostly retro video games. Is there a way to pull the games and data off the CDs for preservation?

Comments

• marietta_man@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Yes, this is what a CD drive is for.

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  • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Or spend $10 for a USB CD/DVD Writer/Reader

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    • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Or $110 if you’re a moron like me

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  • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Thanks! I think my pc has a CD drive, I’ll see about imaging the files.

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    • JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      ImgBurn should be helpful if you are on Windows.

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• Lasherz12@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m not sure if it’s still around, but Alcohol 120% used to be great for bit for bit copying to iso

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  • slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.

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    • xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I am taken back into time by 20+ years. I remember hearing from my friends that it’s the best lightweight imaging tool

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  • 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It is still around actually! I looked into it a month or two ago when I was having some similar thoughts as OP. I found it quite cool they’ll let you download a windows 9x compatible version too for people using the images on a retro machine.

    I’ve done the DVDs I care about, and ensuring I’ve got FLACs of all my CDs is probably next.

    I’m deciding if it’s actually worth doing my PS1 games given I’ve already got a (not entirely legitimate) full 1g1r library on my media server, my rarest game is probably silent hill and that’s definitely already in there.

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  • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ll look into it, thanks!

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    • Psythik@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Please don’t. It’s ancient.

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  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I forgot about that! Good times.

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• neidu3@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Ripping it to an ISO file is basically the “industry standard”. Something else I used to see when sailing the high seas back in the day is bin/cue pairs, but iso was by far the most prevalent. I have long since forgotten how this is done on windows, but on Linux it’s basically dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/studmuffin2000/somecd.iso

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  • adespoton@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Depends on the CD. If it’s just a data CD, iso is the way to go. If it’s a mixed mode CD with data plus audio, bin/cue will preserve the audio tracks but iso may not. Also, mixed Joliet/HFS CDs can lose one of the formats if imaged with an iso imager.

    The big thing is that you want to image the entire CD and not just the most recent track on the CD.

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    • neidu3@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That makes sense - I never looked into why bin/cue was sometimes used. Would that mean that bin/cue is better for multitrack and mixed mode CDs?

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    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      how do you figure out if it’s a plain data CD or there’s something extra on it too?

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• friend_of_satan@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Before you spend effort on this, check archive.org and see if the software has already been archived.

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  • Doolbs@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Archive.org has tutorials on how to upload as well. I’m too lazy to go find them right now though.

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• adarza@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  you can mostly just create ISO files from the discs.

  some original discs, especially games, may have a copy protection scheme (safedisc, securom, etc) that makes them unplayable without being run with the original media, though. there was some software back then that worked pretty well at ‘making backups’ of those discs. also note that some drives (the hardware itself) were better than others at running that software to make them. i haven’t kept up with that stuff in a very long time, so i don’t have a clue what exists today.

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  • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    yeah that’s what in afraid of, if it’s copywrite or DRM protected.

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    • BurgerBaron@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The tools to get around early CD DRM copy protection is still available on GameCopyWorld's website.

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• SGforce@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Be carful when cleaning the dust off. The tiniest scratch could corrupt data.

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  • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Good point. I’m not sure how old these are either, if the data is already corrupted or if they have disc rot or anything

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• Chivera@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  ImgBurn

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• bacon_pdp@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  dd if=/dev/dvd of=game.iso bs=4096

  Good luck

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• floo@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If you let us know what operating system you’re using, we can make some recommendations for some apps to use for archiving your CD collection.

  As was mentioned in another comment, you can rip the CDs into images (.iso files) which you can store and mount anytime!

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  • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    My PC is on Pop!_OS, I’m pretty sure it has a CD drive with it too.

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    • floo@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      How are you with working in the command line?

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• WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Just write it down.

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