- May 19, 2011
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I have some old computer games, for example Tomb Raider 2 (1997). The original CD still works, but it's reasonable to assume that it's not going to last forever.
I had the great idea of creating an ISO of the CD (which is required to play the game), then in theory I could double-click on the ISO file and mount the disc image virtually (like how MS Office installs these days), however because the CD has CD audio tracks, these don't get included in a standard ISO (which Windows can read/mount). I then fired up IsoBuster and had it create a full ISO of the disc (raw data), but Windows doesn't want to mount that file (the file definitely isn't corrupt, just that Windows ideally should read the cue file that got created alongside the ISO).
I don't much like no-CD hacks partly because of the possibility of malware and partly because it would have to include some solution for getting the CD audio as well (and from what I've read, the no-CD hacks for TR2 don't include CD audio).
For now I've ended up writing a CD using the iso/cue file in Linux (k3b) which appears to have worked. Not ideal because the game would flow better sometimes if it didn't have to stop while a CD track change occurs, but I guess it's better than nothing. I've heard of other bits of software which will mount an ISO as a virtual CD drive but I don't know if those suffer from the same problem that Windows does.
Any other ideas? One other option includes paying a fiver for it on Steam and the reviews are decent for it but there's a few in there that seem a bit odd and I would prefer to have found a review that explicitly states that the CD audio made it to the Steam version.
I had the great idea of creating an ISO of the CD (which is required to play the game), then in theory I could double-click on the ISO file and mount the disc image virtually (like how MS Office installs these days), however because the CD has CD audio tracks, these don't get included in a standard ISO (which Windows can read/mount). I then fired up IsoBuster and had it create a full ISO of the disc (raw data), but Windows doesn't want to mount that file (the file definitely isn't corrupt, just that Windows ideally should read the cue file that got created alongside the ISO).
I don't much like no-CD hacks partly because of the possibility of malware and partly because it would have to include some solution for getting the CD audio as well (and from what I've read, the no-CD hacks for TR2 don't include CD audio).
For now I've ended up writing a CD using the iso/cue file in Linux (k3b) which appears to have worked. Not ideal because the game would flow better sometimes if it didn't have to stop while a CD track change occurs, but I guess it's better than nothing. I've heard of other bits of software which will mount an ISO as a virtual CD drive but I don't know if those suffer from the same problem that Windows does.
Any other ideas? One other option includes paying a fiver for it on Steam and the reviews are decent for it but there's a few in there that seem a bit odd and I would prefer to have found a review that explicitly states that the CD audio made it to the Steam version.
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