Newbie looking for advice

[peterwinston]

Hello,

My goal is to be able to...

- Make backups of cds I own
- Run cds virtually from HD (otherwise my kids scratch them up in no time)

I used to have a tool to do this, but as my kids are getting older so are the protections on the cds (in particular they seem to only want to play the Sims these days).

I've looked around this site, and my confusion/questions are::

- Is Daemon tools where I should be looking?
- Your site references Alcohol 120% (primarily as a burner);
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but their site says its an emulator (isn't that what Daemon tools is??);
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and a virtual CD
- Fantom CD is also referenced on your site in the list of burners, but also as a vitual cd emulator.

There seem to be so many overlapping programs that I'm at a loss to know what the relationship between the tools is and which would be best for my (admittedly limited) needs.

I just don't want to get in the bind I had with my previous emulator (Paragon) where I've spent a lot of time with it and now need to move to something else. I had actually gone to the extent of developing my own web front end to it to make it easier for my kids to use.

Anyway - any enlightenment appreciated.

Regards...

[NetSoerfer]

Hi,

Alcohol 120% is the descendant of FantomCD, currently being the most advanced CD copying program available. It can read all versions of SafeDisc, SecuROM, StarForce 1&2, and almost any other copy protection that exists. It is constantly being improved to manage upcoming copy protections.

If you want to try Alcohol 120%, go to http://www.alcohol-soft.com and download a thirty-day trial version.

Daemon Tools is the father of Alcohol 120%. Its virtual CD and emulation engine is the same version as that of Alcohol, but Daemon Tools is free for personal use. However you cannot read or write any CDs with Daemon Tools, it only takes existing images and mounts them to its up to four virtual drives and emulate copy protections for imperfectly copied CDs. Daemon Tools will be useful for you e.g. if you have two computers, one for burning, one for playing - you won't need to install a burning program (Alcohol 120%) on your playing computer to emulate a copy protection although you don't have a burner on it.


HTH

sG

[peterwinston]

Thanks Sergei! Very helpful. I'm glad there are good tools to allow me to use my own software properly!

I noticed on their website it looks like mounting virtual cds can be automated as well. With a little luck, I'll be able to change just a little code in the front end I made for the kids to run their games.

Cheers...