Best ISO maker?

[Drezliok]

I have a CD burning prog that can make ISOs, but I noticed that it doesn't copy the disk only it's files, and when I compare the Real CD to the mounted image it's not the same in mb.

What's a good ISO or CD image maker thats either Free or Free to Try. I havn't the money to spend on a product yet.

My Test subject is The Sims Deluxe Edition. I figure there is copy protection. Does it hurt to use all 4 emulations at the same time?

Thankyou for you time.

Drezliok

[philamber]

Try alcohol. It's not free but does offer a 30 day free trial period.

[Sapiens]

I use BlindWrite Suite myself, and though I don't have much experience with Alcohol, I've heard very good things. A few notes... one, the image files for a dumped disc are larger than the size of the files on the disc itself. You may dump a 675 MB CD and the image files might be well over 700 MB; that doesn't mean it's a bad dump, and when you go to burn, the image will still fit. Why it works like that is beyond me, though I'd guess it has something to do with the way the information is stored after it's extracted.

Two, in order for The Sims to work with DAEMON Tools, you'll need to use an image creation program that supports reading CD subcodes. This is the copy protection you mentioned (in the form of SafeDisc);
and if the subcodes aren't copied correctly then you won't be able to play from your image. BlindWrite gives you this option and will store the data in a BWS file for you; I'm sure Alcohol does something similar. Once you've managed to dump the CD image along with its subcodes, simply put the three files (the third being the TOC, which should be created automatically by whatever program you're using) in the same place, mount the image with DAEMON Tools, and enable SafeDisc emulation. It should be smooth sailing after that.

[XzombieX]

What about freeware utilities that create ISO images of CDs? Are there any? I've searched around and wasn't able to find any.

[,jACkdA\W]

Freeware? Try IsoBuster. But it won't do much good against serious copyprotections.

Why it works like that is beyond me, though I'd guess it has something to do with the way the information is stored after it's extracted.

There simply is more in a disk sector than just the user data (which would correspond to combined file sizes)

[ezeri]

ISO Buster will not be able to copy The Sims Deluxe edition, I think, youre best bet wouls be to take alcohol120% (sounds like we are promoting it );
look in the game database for the right type of cracking for future games you would want to backup, and as far as for the emulation, no I dont think there are any ill effects in having all 4 activated, it is my case for starters ^^

[justadad]

I found a free ISO maker for windows XP. It is billed as a Powertoy by its maker. It leverages the built in ability of XP to record software. It can create an ISO or it can burn and ISO to a CD. I have tried it on my home machine where I use DaemonTools under the personal license.

It is available at:

http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm

(I will probably post this as a top level message in addition to this reply as I am sure others will want to see it.)