Been moving the same DVD-RW drive to every new computer for like 20 years. I'll be able to read Mechwarrior 2 until I die.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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Time to grab a USB powered dvd drive? I don't have a 5.25, but we've got a 3.5 and a zip disk what run off USB that hold our access to our old disk troves. I should probably move them all to a single thumb drive one of these days.
Look up your old favourite games. A lot of them have communities that have kept them updated so their playable on modern hardware as long as you have a (totally legal) ISO or disc in your possession.
For example, Project Magma has been keeping Myth The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter going for 25+ years now.
I loved this game back when Bungie was a Mac-only developer and it holds up pretty well with a couple graphics mods in addition to the work Project Magma has done.
I currently have 4 old Thinkpad T420s (nice) set up just to run this game on Linux with some friends around the kitchen table.
LibreQuake is another one. I’m not as familiar with what they’ve been up to, as I never had a computer that could run Quake in its heyday, so it doesn’t hold the same nostalgia for me. That said, I appreciate their work anyway.
OpenRA keeps Command & Conquer and its various sequels and spin-offs alive, including Dune 2000. Combined Arms is especially fun; a version that includes all the armies from all the games.
Steam allowed me to use the old security code for my physical copy of Medieval 2: Total War to allow me to download a digital copy updated to work on Windows 10.
I have a CD drive you can plug into your computer for CDs.
I have a disc drive in my computer. I've still torrented games that I have on my shelf because its easier.
They sell the drive as a USB item, buy one of those and enjoy.
I searched for and found an audio CD last month, and then proceeded to rip it on my PC as mp3.
No idea why some people don't have CD drives anymore.
So many computer cases don't have 5.25" bays anymore. But some do and those are ones I end up purchasing because I have a few CD/DVD drives kicking around that I'll toss in my computers when I build them because I'd rather have it and rarely use it than not have it and have to turn to a noisy and slow USB DVD drive
I got an unopened box with a USB DVD/Blue ray player. I am good.
This is why piracy is so important.
🤔 is it considered piracy if you're downloading a copy of something you already own?
In the US it is. 🙃
Yes. Companies in the US get to sell the cake and keep it too.
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Blud, I have this problem. But with 3.5" floppy disks.
Cutely goes to the internet and download the game for free from there with hopefully no viruses
A usb cd/dvd/bluray drive is like $20 on amazon, nothing stopping you.
You can even get ones with spicy firmware for extra flavour that lets you back up your physical media (where allowed by law, of course... Naturally)
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Currently rocking an internal blu ray drive and external floppy one (only because I couldn't find an internal one), I can't possibly imagine not having an optical drive on my computers. I still own a lot of disks including software and movies, I won't just throw everything away because the tech is now deemed obsolete (which is debatable on top of that, currently have a better quality on blu ray than on streaming platforms, plus no ads and works offline) If only it were easier to install multi-disk software through wine/proton though...
Yeah I'm increasingly convinced the "Nobody uses discs anymore" thing is a coordinated manipulation campaign by rent-seeking streaming media giants...
I wouldn't go that far, my external media drives really don't get used as much it used to, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that people still using discs are now very uncommon anyway. Doesn't help that the blu-rays are still worse than piracy convenience wise due to the several layers of drm to bypass to be allowed to read a disc I own on hardware I own with software I also own...
Yeah discs are mostly a backup medium for me now, as I'd rather just read things off my server. :)
HOWEVER... I'm not absolutely swimming in terabytes as a lot of self-hosters seem to, which makes storage really suck right now.
...So we still use our blu-rays because I can't afford to just throw gig after gig on platters like that. :(
ive still got cds with programs that just wont even install on 10
If you have them installed, right click on the file and choose properties. There should be a compatibility tab that will let you choose an older version of windows to run it on. Also running as administrator can sometimes fix it too.
have tried that, from 98 thru 8
That's the nice part about Linux, you rip the CD to an Iso file, and can directly Mount the ISO file as a drive.
I use Linux and think everyone else should, too... but Windows 11 also supports mounting iso files
Ooo, I never tried that.
Good luck ripping an ISO without a CD adapter
If any one wants one I have 3. I figured backing up to DVD for FSM photos probably means I should have a working DVD drive later on
Magnifying glass + lots of typing ones and zeros.
I have several dozen optical drives. It's pretty great.
I have a blu-ray drive that got a lot of action at one point backing up movies. Now it just sits there sad and lifeless. This might be my inspiration to get that guy back in action.
Honestly, invest in a Blu-ray writer and pick up some decent 25gb discs.
Not only can you play old games, but you can archive data in a relatively stable format at a much lower price point.
I had read at one point many years ago that CD-Rs degrade over time and are not good for long term backups. Is this wrong or are Blurays different?
So, CD-Rs in particular are very bad with regards to stability because the thing you are writing too is a layer of dye. Some are better than others, but basically all will have that dye brake down and fade over time. The type of plastic in the disk as well, a few Japanese disc producers were notorious for using plastic that had a tendency to absorb moisture form the air that would rapidly cause the disks to degrade.
There are other methods of writing though. CD-RWs for instance are much more stable as instead of burning away a bit of volatile dye layer, they are writing to a layer of metal alloy by melting it a little to change it’s crystal structure.
The same is true with recordable blue rays, with Low to High disks using the same sort of dye burning as CD-Rs, High to Low disks use a variety of different mechanisms to write, but some use a similar melty metal as CD-RWs.
I have one that's mostly broken, which isn't a surprise as I took it from e-waste.
When I tried to burn a disc with it, it suddenly started accelerating out of control and I had to kill the power to it. It almost shattered the disc:
Clearly that wasn't burning it quite well.
But there's another interesting thing. It won't read CDs. Except, somehow, VLC manages to get something out of it. It's earrape, and the recording from VLC ends up corrupted, but FFMPEG can still process it as raw audio (and so can aplay).
Here's a sample:
https://files.catbox.moe/bkwt82.flac
Audio should embed on desktop:
This sounds like The Cure or something gothy playing through a 30s AM radio then transmitted to me by neighbour through our tin can phone system.
Someone should run it through some distortion filters and maybe adjust some timings so it keeps a consistent beat. (I swear a hear a drum-machine version of a kick drum keeping beat there already)
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I basically haven't used my multiple external cd dvd drives in years, but i will not get rid of them for the just in case factor. Speaking of my father gave me a handful of live music cds he wanted me to rip so it will get some use very soon.
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Just torrent it. It's actually pretty legal in that case
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