cd-rom drive

[WormEater]

hey
I'm trying to test some old games on pcem.
and i ran into an issue with one of the not accepting the image as genuine CD and there for not loading the game.
i know that i was at some point able to use my real drive and the real disk via pcem but now i don't have the option at all.

is there a reason for this or am i doing something wrong.

[Arjen42]

Welcome to the forum. Please be aware that this forum has a strict policy that forbids discussion of bypassing copy protection and similar topics.

If the game is using copy protection, using an image file would make the game fail. This is how the game's copy protection scheme is designed to work. PCem is not designed to bypass copy protection.

Many copy protection schemes work in a way that depend on the way a physical drive handles a copy protected disc. It's not guaranteed to work on a physical drive that works differently (e.g. newer drives) or a disc that's either a physical copy (e.g. recordable discs) or an image file.

[WormEater]

Welcome to the forum. Please be aware that this forum has a strict policy that forbids discussion of bypassing copy protection and similar topics.

If the game is using copy protection, using an image file would make the game fail. This is how the game's copy protection scheme is designed to work. PCem is not designed to bypass copy protection.

Many copy protection schemes work in a way that depend on the way a physical drive handles a copy protected disc. It's not guaranteed to work on a physical drive that works differently (e.g. newer drives) or a disc that's either a physical copy (e.g. recordable discs) or an image file.

oh my bad, but what i'm actually trying to do right now is use the real disk that i bought and payed for. but i cant get pcem to detect my real cd-rom drive

[siljo1]

Is it a CD or DVD?

[unreal9010]

Using host machine's optical drives under PCem is not recommended. Instead, you should create backup copies of your discs with software like Daemon Tools, Clone CD, Alcohol 120%, UltraISO or similar. If the disc you wish to use is a data CD then saving it as .iso is enough. If it's a mixed mode CD (audio/data) then you'll have to save it in bin/cue or mdf/mds format. The latter is particularly useful when making virtual copies of copy-protected discs. Such discs are often difficult to rip/copy/save as they might require specific software (e. g. Daemon Tools Ultra) that supports making backup copies of protected discs.
The process might take a while and lots of errors may be reported in the meantime.

Bear in mind that PCem currently doesn't support copy protection technologies of any kind. It will probably recognize the disc and let you install the game, however, you will not be able to run it. This happened to me when I attempted to run Blood 2, NFS 3 (UK/English European version), Rollercoaster Tycoon, Silver, Aliens vs. Predator, Simcity 3000 and Turok 2. The only way I was able to get these games to work was to download cracked executable files commonly known as "cracks".
You are only allowed to download such files as long as you own a legal copy of the game for which a cracked file is intended.

[WormEater]

Thanks

didn't know the differences of the file types, this might help me. I doubt I will be able to find a crack for this.
it is a obscure title.

[WormEater]

Using host machine's optical drives under PCem is not recommended. Instead, you should create backup copies of your discs with software like Daemon Tools, Clone CD, Alcohol 120%, UltraISO or similar. If the disc you wish to use is a data CD then saving it as .iso is enough. If it's a mixed mode CD (audio/data) then you'll have to save it in bin/cue or mdf/mds format. The latter is particularly useful when making virtual copies of copy-protected discs. Such discs are often difficult to rip/copy/save as they might require specific software (e. g. Daemon Tools Ultra) that supports making backup copies of protected discs.
The process might take a while and lots of errors may be reported in the meantime.

Bear in mind that PCem currently doesn't support copy protection technologies of any kind. It will probably recognize the disc and let you install the game, however, you will not be able to run it. This happened to me when I attempted to run Blood 2, NFS 3 (UK/English European version), Rollercoaster Tycoon, Silver, Aliens vs. Predator, Simcity 3000 and Turok 2. The only way I was able to get these games to work was to download cracked executable files commonly known as "cracks".
You are only allowed to download such files as long as you own a legal copy of the game for which a cracked file is intended.

do you know if there is any benefit to running deamon tool in the emulation and putting the image in there aswell?

[unreal9010]

Using host machine's optical drives under PCem is not recommended. Instead, you should create backup copies of your discs with software like Daemon Tools, Clone CD, Alcohol 120%, UltraISO or similar. If the disc you wish to use is a data CD then saving it as .iso is enough. If it's a mixed mode CD (audio/data) then you'll have to save it in bin/cue or mdf/mds format. The latter is particularly useful when making virtual copies of copy-protected discs. Such discs are often difficult to rip/copy/save as they might require specific software (e. g. Daemon Tools Ultra) that supports making backup copies of protected discs.
The process might take a while and lots of errors may be reported in the meantime.

Bear in mind that PCem currently doesn't support copy protection technologies of any kind. It will probably recognize the disc and let you install the game, however, you will not be able to run it. This happened to me when I attempted to run Blood 2, NFS 3 (UK/English European version), Rollercoaster Tycoon, Silver, Aliens vs. Predator, Simcity 3000 and Turok 2. The only way I was able to get these games to work was to download cracked executable files commonly known as "cracks".
You are only allowed to download such files as long as you own a legal copy of the game for which a cracked file is intended.

do you know if there is any benefit to running deamon tool in the emulation and putting the image in there aswell?

In some cases there might be. In fact, for me it was the only way to get the PSX games working properly when used with PSX emulators inside VM. I tested Connectix VGS, AdriPSX and ePSXe. When I mounted the PSX game image file with Daemon Tools Ultra virtual machine recognized the disc, however no emulator was able to properly read from disc even though it did detect the drive so I had to install a Win9x-compatible version of Daemon Tools, copy the PSX game image file to the virtual machine's hard drive and then mount the image from there. So, yes, this might be the only way to run Gran Turismo along with Ocarina of Time and Half-Life on the same virtual machine.
Copying properly ripped images of protected PC games and mounting them with copy protection-aware software from within VM might work too, although I haven't tested it yet.

[tk421]

Running Daemon Tools within a PCem VM is the best way to fix these virtual CD errors. You need to use BIN/CUE format instead of ISO format for your virtual CDs otherwise your old game, now virtualized CDs might not have audio music, ie redbook audio for games like TIE Fighter or Jedi Knight.

To run Daemon Tools in a Win98 VM within PCem, not VMWare or Virtualbox, you need Daemon Tools v3.47. To install Daemon Tools in Win98 you will most likely need Windows Installer v2. This used to be on the Microsoft website. If not, then you will have to check Google for a new source.

You need to put these virtual CDs on your emulated hard drive. You can do this using programs like Alcohol 52% to put them on a big virtual data DVD image and copy the virtual game CDs onto the emulated hard drive. Run Daemon Tools in Win98, mount your virtual CDs and your game should run fine.

Hope this helps,

tk421

[WormEater]

Running Daemon Tools within a PCem VM is the best way to fix these virtual CD errors. You need to use BIN/CUE format instead of ISO format for your virtual CDs otherwise your old game, now virtualized CDs might not have audio music, ie redbook audio for games like TIE Fighter or Jedi Knight.

To run Daemon Tools in a Win98 VM within PCem, not VMWare or Virtualbox, you need Daemon Tools v3.47. To install Daemon Tools in Win98 you will most likely need Windows Installer v2. This used to be on the Microsoft website. If not, then you will have to check Google for a new source.

You need to put these virtual CDs on your emulated hard drive. You can do this using programs like Alcohol 52% to put them on a big virtual data DVD image and copy the virtual game CDs onto the emulated hard drive. Run Daemon Tools in Win98, mount your virtual CDs and your game should run fine.

Hope this helps,

tk421

i tried doing it this way and i still get a prompt when i try to open the game saying that the disk is not recognized as a valid disk

[unreal9010]

What game are you trying to run?

[WormEater]

What game are you trying to run?

a game based on this movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271509/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_6

the game was made in 2000, they have released a remake in 2021 but the remake is missing some things and the voice over is different.
so I am just trying to see if i can get this working.

[unreal9010]

Is this game copy protected? If it is, then the only way to get it working under PCem might be to obtain a cracked .exe file.

[WormEater]

Is this game copy protected? If it is, then the only way to get it working under PCem might be to obtain a cracked .exe file.

yeah it has cdcops copy protection

[unreal9010]

In that case you'll need to download a crack file for that game. Ask Google for more details. I cannot post any links here, unfortunately.