I have a collection of several hundred game CDs and DVDs, with release dates ranging from 1993 to 2011. Since recently I got a nice large hard drive, and have all my GOG and GamersGate games neatly ordered on it, I was wondering if there was a good way backup all the discs as images that could then be used to install and play the games directly from the hard drive. This would not only make the collection more tidy (by allowing to store any patches, mods, manuals etc. together with the disc image), it would also allow me to play many of these games on my netbook, which doesn't have a disc drive.

I know that tools for creating and playing such images do exist, but I have little experience with them. I found a couple of guides on the net, but most of them are rather old, and indicate that fiddling with lots of specified tools would be required. But I thought perhaps we have fellow collectors here from whose experience I could benefit. :)

So my question is: Are there good tools / good practices to do want I want? Is there a single tool that can create and/or play images of a wide range of game discs? I've also heard that some of these tools have been blacklisted by some copy protection software, so that's a concern too. Any advice is welcome. :)

Edit: I should add - while free tools are of course preferred, I don't have a problem spending some money on a tool that does its job well.

Daemon Tools.

It's free, it allows mounting disc images onto a virtual CD drive (very simple to configure too), and also creates disc images. Really nice tool for the job.

Oh and then it might also be nice to create a folder with all the patches and cracks for the games.

Clone CD :)

On Vista I used CDburnerXP, which felt a lot simpler and less bulky than DaemonTools or Alcohol52%, and my Win 7 that I have today came with something called Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free, which also does the job well.

Some copy protection software disables any SCSI drives it finds unless they're the only optical drives available, in an effort to disable image drives (since most of them do appear as SCSI drives, I don't think any free choices have the option for ATA/IDE drive emulation), so even physical drives have the chance of getting disabled if they're identified as SCSI.

I know the free version of Daemon Tools only does SCSI, while the paid version also can do ATA (for a total of 6 possible image drives: 2 ATA, 4 SCSI).

Of course, some copy protections identify running processes and refuse to work if the wrong applications are open (such as Daemon Tools, or even Process Explorer which I use as a replacement for Windows' built-in worthless task manager), or possibly even installed.

...while I can't actually offer any advice on which imaging software to use (sorry about that, Daemon has worked for my needs), these might be points to have in mind.

might want to check redump.org . they recommend isobuster.

Well, it all depends on what games the are - you can get a program which integrates itself into windows so that you can right click a disc in the drive and make an image from that, but I don't think it works with copy protected ones.

Other than that, it all depends on what copy protection. I myself use Alchohol 120% (although my trial of it has probably expired), it has a option menu for some copy protections like SecuROM (I used it on C&C3, it worked good).

Apart from that, I would have to know what the games where and then tell you what software/settings to use.

Don’t bother with ‘normal‘ burning software (like mentioned CdburnerXP, Nero etc) – it will not help you with CD/DVD that has some kind of protection. Not much of a choice nowadays – AFAIK there were 3 main players in this filed (that is making working copy of PROTECTED CD/DVD) – all mentioned by others: Alcohol, Daemon Tools and Slysoft software. From those it seems only DT is actively developed – although it’s hard for me to say if DT team still develops their soft to handle newer protection systems or they left this and add other features. My first choice would be Alcohol 52%: it's free, it can handle a wide range of protection systems, it has in-build protection analyzer, pre-defined image making profiles, ACID for cloaking virtual drive and virtual drive. From my experience if Alcohol can't make a working image - not likely any other software can.

BlindWrite is supposed to be very good for making images. Alcohol 120% is what I use personally - it can emulate drives and beat disc checks just like Daemon Tools but can also create images and write protected discs. Both Alcohol and (AFAIK) Daemon Tools have ways to make themselves invisible to emulator-detectors such as SecuROM's.

When it comes to backing up your games, there is probably no better place on the internet than the fileforums

http://fileforums.com/

If you don't already know the site, check it out.

I pre-bought Daemon Tools Pro back when they first released it. They use an activation-based DRM which I hate (yes it failed on me, and took a weekend to restore). It does let you use virtual IDE drives, which is important for some games... which I have since replaced with DRM-free versions.

Now they tell me my license will "expire" in a year or so. (New licenses are for lifetime). Nice reward for an early supporter, huh?

I'd rather rebuy the games than buy back into that nonsense.