• Vinny_93@lemmy.world
      0·
      8 days ago

      You can just buy an internal DVD-ROM drive and install it in your pc. If you lack an IDE port on your motherboard you can use PCIe expansion cards. Power can be supplied by Molex.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 days ago

        Most gaming pc cases now don’t have any bay slots on the front panel. USB power buttons and audio plugs got moved to the top and all the slots for floppy and CD drives just vanished.

        • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
          0·
          8 days ago

          Whenever I see a SATA optical drive that someone doesn’t want, I grab it and tuck it away. Shit is rare now.

          I’m sure I could go to a shop and just pick one up, but honestly, I don’t have a reason to. Give me an opportunity to snag one for free and I will not pass it up.

      • Cassa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        0·
        8 days ago

        yea, but that’s pretty janky. external if you’ve got a small desktop or laptop - go internal if you can (still rocking my cd drive in my desktop)

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
        0·
        8 days ago

        If you lack an IDE port on your motherboard

        Bro, IDE has been dead for YEARS now, I’d be shocked if there was an IDE connector on any consumer computer made in the last 10 years (Industrial stuff can get weird)

      • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        Bruh I’m comfortable building my own PCs and that still sounds way more effort than just buying an external optical drive with USB interface.

      • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        I have an external Blu ray drive at this point.

        I’ve always wanted a good quality 3.5" external drive. I rarely have an internal disc drive (cd/dvd/BR) on any of my computers. A few years ago I had the need to pull some files off of a 3.5" floppy, I had to boot up an old Dell PE 2850 server that had a 3.5" drive on it to get the files off the drive. Luckily the copy of Windows server 2003 still booted, and the raid array was operational. It was like a miracle getting that stuff off that disk.

        It was late at night and I couldn’t wait until morning to go buy a USB 3.5" drive to get the data.

        I work in IT and people question my sanity when I’m walking home with SCSI interfaces and corresponding SCSI tape drives. I even picked up a zip 100 usb drive at some point.

        I never used it for it’s intended purpose, but as soon as someone needs data off of some archive, on an outdated storage format, I become the MVP.

  • cheddar@programming.dev
    0·
    8 days ago

    Then you get a drive, but the game you loved is no longer playable since the server it is using to confirm its license has been offline for years.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 days ago

    A USB DVD Reader/Writer costs 15 bucks. (I’m too used feel like that meme, and then at some point I needed to find a way to get a Mini-PC to read CDs, and as it turns out it’s quite simple - I reckon it was more a case of “can’t be arsed to do it” than a case of “can’t do it”).

    • NaoPb@eviltoast.orgEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      I wonder how long that price will last. We might be living in just the right time to buy a boatload of optical drives.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    I have an external DVD-RW on a shelf just in case. Every once in a while I need to bring it out and I wonder if a giant boulder is going to start rolling at me when I grab it.

    • KinglyWeevil@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      8 days ago

      I actually have a SATA cable and power plug discreetly tucked in a spot in my PC case and have just taken the side off and plugged in a drive on occasion. It’s normal purpose is troubleshooting other hard drives, but it works for that too

    • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
      0·
      8 days ago

      I just bought an external cd/dvd drive so I can convert my DVD library into a digital one for convenience and to preserve the dvds longer.

      I’m having some issues with the speed of conversion, but my biggest problem is quickly becoming storage space.

      Also, I dug up some of my old games like Caesar III and installed a no-CD “patch”.

      Good times.

      There’s an adapter or replacement for everything

  • umbraroze@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 days ago

    Pro tip: if you have a physical copy of a game and it’s also available on Steam, try registering the CD key. (Obviously doesn’t work if the game doesn’t have a CD key. Or if the publisher is a dick. looking at you, EA)

    • PancakeBrock@lemmy.zip
      English
      0·
      7 days ago

      I never did it on steam but years back I contacted origin support and they let me register all my old ea games keys and still have them on the ea app. Not great but I thought it was cool.

      They let me do all of them except battlefield Vietnam. They said they didn’t have that one available to download at the time.

  • dumbass@leminal.spaceEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    If you out the CD in the microwave for 15 seconds you can shrink it down to the size of a SD card, the SD card slot will read it.

  • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    8 days ago

    You couldn’t play it anyway. It has SecuROM as a copy protection and that is basically a rootkit that is not allowed to run on Windows Vista and above.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
      0·
      8 days ago

      Run it in a VM, then get the NoCD from gamecopyworld?

      (Not sure if that’s an option for securom)

      • boonhet@lemm.ee
        0·
        8 days ago

        Securom has been cracked long ago yeah. I believe it was SafeDisc or StarForce that made things hella weird in a cracked game, but that was bypassed by mounting the CD back then and now I think the cracks work too

  • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 days ago

    I’ve got DVD-ROM drives in my desktop PC and my old laptop that I use for playing videos while I exercise and a USB Blu-Ray drive that I can use in anything else. You’ll get my disc caddies when you pry them from my cold dead hands.