How do I make a copied game CD work when playing the game

[videocheez]

I copied my MS Age of Empires CD using DVDDup and it works fine for loading and installing the game on to my PC. In order to play this game the CD must be running inside my CD ROM. When I try to play the game, my computer doesn't recognize the duplicated CD even though I believe it's a mirrored copy. Any suggestions as to how I can make this copied CD work not only for installing the game, but also for playing it?

Thanks in advance,

VC

[legionpc]

You could try using Daemon Tools or the hide CDR media function in CloneCD.

[rude_skankin]

I remember having the same exact problem with the same exact game. Well after using many programs I finally fell upon CloneCD. Works for all my games. Alternatively you can use CDmate (i've heard does same thing as Clone CD) or find a NoCD Fix. There is one for Age of Empires on the game site or MS site. Its been awhile since I needed that so I don't remember exactly where.

The reason you can't just make a copy of the game and play it is due to the copy protection on on the CD itself. Most CD burning software will only read good data on the CD and ignore the bad sectors. Nero does this. AOE and many other games, the method of copy protection is the company producing the CD, intentionely writes bad sectors on the CD making it more difficult to make real backups. DUP and Nero and many others won't read the bad sectors so you end up with a CD with all the information just no copy protection. And you can install it but try to play it and it says something like "please insert CD."

CloneCD makes real copies, by writing in RAW mode which reads everything from bad sectors to even (if they are bad enough) scratchs. Hopefully your CD burner can write in RAW mode as some of the older ones can't.

Hope this helps, if not maybe it will help someone else. As it took me months before I finally made a working copy of AOE.

Anthony

[videocheez]

Thanks a million for the tip, i'm gonna hunt down clonecd right now. Also thanks for the info about the bad sectors, I love learning new things.

VC

[loveturtleozark]

turn your computer settings to Canada install CloneCD
Burn the image again using the Game CD preset but right click on it and change the weak sector-emulate to amplify -works every time

[videocheez]

Why and how do I change my computer settings to canada?

Thanks,