Is it possible to back-up PC-FX games?

[Lupin The Third]

Recently I purchased a back-up system and the 2 main games missing from my collection, Zenki and Zeroigar. Two days ago when taking Zenki out of the system the disc slipped from my grasp and landed face first on the floor. Suffice to say I was quite fearful of the results, but fortunately the disc was not scratched at all. However this incident got me wondering if it was possible to make back-ups of my more rare PC-FX titles. I seem to recall at one point there was a link on the PC-FX page a couple years back that linked to ISOs for a couple of games...so I tried making a copy, but it didn't work. Is there some way to do this?

Hopefully no one takes this thread the wrong way, yes this is my first post, but I've been reading the site off and on for several years and I simply want to avoid losing my games to time or my own clumsiness; so hopefully someone will point me in the right direction. I don't want links to pirate sites or anything like that, I'm not looking for games for free. I'd just like to know if it's possible to back-up my titles and what I did wrong.

Thanks in advance for any help!
-Lup

[Necromancer]

Welcome aboard.  Try following the tutorials on necstasy for ripping a PCE game; the process shouldn't be too different for the PC-FX.

[nat]

Sure is. I'll save you the trouble of having to wade through necstasy.

Use the TurboRip.EXE utility to rip a burnable image of any PC-FX game from the original disc.

Simply typing "TURBORIP" at the command prompt will the get the ball rolling and prompt you through the necessary steps to create an image.

The image created can be burned using your favorite image burning app, Nero or whatever's your poison.

I've done this with quite a few of my PC-FX games because some of the originals have already become too scratched to play reliably on my system, especially the streaming FMV portions. Any modern CD/DVD burner has enough error correction to read the disc properly however, creating a perfectly viable image.

Hope this helps.

[Lupin The Third]

Awesome. Thanks for the help guys! I was expecting someone to freak and ban me over even asking this, but I really did panic when I dropped my Zenki....from now on I can keep my precious titles safe in the case for collectional value and just play the back-up worry free!

[nat]

Discussing legit backups isn't against the rules, but linking ISOs and ROMs is.

[scrodamoon]

welcome to the boards Lupin, and nobody is gonna hound ya for wanting to keep your collection the best you can.

[Lupin The Third]

Sure is. I'll save you the trouble of having to wade through necstasy.

Use the TurboRip.EXE utility to rip a burnable image of any PC-FX game from the original disc.

Simply typing "TURBORIP" at the command prompt will the get the ball rolling and prompt you through the necessary steps to create an image.

The image created can be burned using your favorite image burning app, Nero or whatever's your poison.

So I tried this....it extracted all the files onto my HDD and then I went into the folder, right clicked on the ISO file and burned to CD Rom using CopytoDVD....popped into the PC-FX, it recognized it as a game disc and when I clicked the icon to start it went to a black screen and the drive continued to spin without loading any data. Did I do something wrong? Was I supposed to burn just the ISO file, or is am I supposed to copy all of the files....the TurboRip tutorial is a bit vague about the burning process.

[Necromancer]

You need to burn both the .iso and the .wav files or else the game won't work correctly; even if it did work, you'd be playing without the music, which would make baby Jesus cry and force Him to drown a monkey.  Try mounting the disc image in a virtual drive using Daemon Tools (or something similar) and then use CloneCD to burn to a disc.  Look at the tutorial on Necstasy called 'Burn using DAEMON Tools and CloneCD' for more detailed instructions.  Good luck.

[nat]

Sure is. I'll save you the trouble of having to wade through necstasy.

Use the TurboRip.EXE utility to rip a burnable image of any PC-FX game from the original disc.

Simply typing "TURBORIP" at the command prompt will the get the ball rolling and prompt you through the necessary steps to create an image.

The image created can be burned using your favorite image burning app, Nero or whatever's your poison.

So I tried this....it extracted all the files onto my HDD and then I went into the folder, right clicked on the ISO file and burned to CD Rom using CopytoDVD....popped into the PC-FX, it recognized it as a game disc and when I clicked the icon to start it went to a black screen and the drive continued to spin without loading any data. Did I do something wrong? Was I supposed to burn just the ISO file, or is am I supposed to copy all of the files....the TurboRip tutorial is a bit vague about the burning process.

It should have produced an ISO, a WAV (or two), and a CUE sheet. You need to burn the cuesheet.

What you describe is a common mistake and is exactly what will happen if you burn only the ISO portion.

[Green Card]

I also asked this question in another thread but I believe it is more relevant here. Does playing CD-R games damage the laser for the system? I know this was a problem for the Dreamcast so I am curious about the PC Engine especially since I hear these systems usually have laser problems.

[geepee16]

i know very little about how to do this stuff but i will say that i have had very few problems backing up pc^fx titles using nero of all things! i am away from home alot and leave my zenki, chip chan kick, nirgends and zeroigar there (easily over $500 for those total). thus far, all is well and they all seem to work.

[nat]

I also asked this question in another thread but I believe it is more relevant here. Does playing CD-R games damage the laser for the system? I know this was a problem for the Dreamcast so I am curious about the PC Engine especially since I hear these systems usually have laser problems.

I have one or two backed up PC-FX games, just because the originals are a little scratched and cause some of the streamed video to skip. These burns play fine in my PC-FX. I think the optical unit in the PC-FX is a little more robust than the one used in the TurboDuo and playing burns on the FX doesn't cause calibration drift as easily as it will on the Duo.

[geepee16]

i am as big a dreamcast fan as i am a pce/turbo/fx one and i have heard the argument about cdrs over the years.  i have a few dcs and the laser on one needs recalibration which i have had no luck with.  was this due to my rabid - and i mean rabid - use of video CDs (basically just cdrs of movies i took with me when i moved to japan)? i don't know but i doubt it cause my other DCs are fine.  it's simply not as sturdy a unit as the saturn was i guess...

anyway, to get back on topic...NERO.