I bought both Thief 1&2 when they originally came out and enjoyed playing them on my old PC, but have never been able to get them working on either of the new laptops I've purchased since then.

So, natually, I was thinking of just buying them anew from GOG. But it seems stupid that I'd have to buy the games again, considering that I am looking at the discs as I type this...

Does anyone know how I'd go about getting my original copies to work, or should I just buy them again?

The patches GOG uses are available separately; (for Thief/Thief Gold) and [url=http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131106]Tafferpatcher (for Thief II) and you'll have the equivalent of the GOG versions.

I was in the same boat you are and while I was eventually able to get my roms running with patches and tweeking and tweeking and more tweeking and then some MORE TWEEKING :P, I finally decided it would just be easier to get them here if for no other reason than I can stop worrying about losing my discs.

I will say that I did not pay full price and managed to snag them on sale which was nice. If times are tough I of course recommend you save up for something you don't have but keep an eye open and I'm sure you will see them discounted again at which time you might want to go ahead and snag them. Even with patching the GOG versions offer a little more in terms of graphical improvements on #1 which IMO is worth a buck or two.