Copied game won't play

Trying to make copy of Ages of Empires II (my kids can be rough on CD's, so I try to have a ready back-up). I have a HP burner and wasn't able to do the CD to CD copying directly, got some error message about the source disc may need cleaning, but nothing is wrong with the disc, it's in good condiiton. No problem, I copied the CD using the HP Direct CD (Adaptec 3.0) to a RW disc. All the files copied fine. When I went to play the game using the copied disc, I get an error message that I must install the correct CD. Okay, I then made a copy onto a CD-R disc (via Direct CD) and had it formatted at the end to be read on other CD players, in case that was the problem, and still the game won't recognize the copied disc.

Is it something I'm doing/not doing? Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

That game has copy protections. There are entire sites dedicated to copying games with copy protection. You basically need CloneCD to copy and burn the game. You also have to use a freeware utility to determine what kind of copy protection it has so you can set CloneCD correctly. It is doubtful that your HP will copy sub-channel data which might make the game less than perfect even when you get it running. The CloneCD page will tell you that under supported burners.

DirectCD is about the last way you would want to copy something. Learn to use EZ CD Creator or whatever mastering software came with your burner. I doubt that it will copy Age of Empires, but it will back up your Windows and program CDs as well as do a nice job on music.

CloneCD: http://www.elby.org/CloneCD/english/index.htm

Game Copy: http://www.gamecopyworld.com/
And: http://www.geocities.com/~rootuser/main1.html

Protections: http://205.162.50.212/software/clonecd/page2.shtml

 

Thanks for the quick reply! I only have copying software that came with the burner. I'll check out the links you gave. I was wondering if there was some copy protection going on. What I found weird was that I was able to fully install the game from the copy, but not run it from the copy. Oh well.

Really appreciate you taking the time to help.

 

Burn it in RAW mode and it should copy bit for bit.

 

I'm not sure what that is.......Thanks!