Guide To Ripping Older CD-Based Games

I’ve had a number of people ask me how to rip their older games into an ISO-type format, so I’ve cobbled together some information on the topic.

I personally use a piece of shareware software called CDRWin. It’s a very powerful piece of software that is very solid and has never given me problems. It can be a little intimidating at first, but really isn’t difficult. There are many other programs that you could possibly use, but for simplicity’s sake, we’ll stick with CDRWin and the BIN + CUE format.

I’m also suggesting the BIN + CUE format for a couple reasons

It’s not proprietary so most people can burn the images is a variety of different software packages (Nero, Roxio, Alcohol 120%, CDRWin, etc)
It’s the most popular format among retro-gaming downloaders

This tutorial applies to games from various systems such as Sega Saturn, Sega CD, Neo-Geo CD, 3DO, and even Playstation. I’m sure there are others, but I haven’t personally dealt with them.
If you are interested, ripping Dreamcast games is completely different.

So on with the tutorial. Just follow these steps…

Ripping in BIN + CUE Format

Put the CD in the drive you want (preferably a burner — it will most likely have variable reading speeds)
Start up CDRWIN.
Select Extract Disk/Track/Sectors, the top middle button on the toolbar.Choose Disk Image / Cuesheet as the Extract Mode on the top of the next window.

Name the file ‘whatever.bin’ (‘whatever’ being the name of your game).
You might want to set the Data and Audio Speed to 4X – 8X just to reduce the chance of data errors.
Click Start and CDRWIN will rip the BIN file and create a CUE sheet.
Finally, open the cue sheet in a flat ASCII text editor (like notepad) and remove the path from the file name. For example, I changed the first line of my Guardian Heroes CUE sheet
From – FILE “C:\GAMERIPS\GUARDIAN_HEROES.BIN” BINARY
To – FILE “GUARDIAN_HEROES.BIN” BINARY
That way, as long as the CUE and BIN files are in the same folder (which they always should be), anyone will be able to use it on any machine without editing anything.
The BIN + CUE set is now ready for naming, compression and uploading.

That’s it! Pretty easy, huh?
Once you’ve done it a few times, it’s a piece of cake.

February 19th, 2005 at 4:06pm by racketboy

Retro Gaming, Saturn

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8 Comments

Anonymous says:

May 24, 2005 at 3:42 am

Hey, I’m pretty much a newb with this sort of thing.

I wanna mod my saturn mainly cause I want radiant Silvergun which goes for 180-220$ on Ebay, But I’ve never modded before, I hear of something called an ST key that doesn’t require Any modding, But can still play back-ups, Do you know of this? Because Personally I hate doing something that could kill a console, Ecspecially one that’s no longer manufactured, Basically I don’t wanna be part of a console’s Extinction, Ecspecially Since I’m not too confident In my ability’s in this subject.

If that thing isn’t what I think it is (ST key), Is there any of this software for mac that can help me pull this off? I thought It’d be simple Like I could simply copy it too the desktop and then put it on a CD-R.

Also what would you reccomend I solder with? I hear that that Cold heat thing work’s nicely

Moose…

racketboy says:

May 26, 2005 at 8:53 am

There are no carts that will allow you to play backups. They only allow imports.

It’s pretty hard to kill a console by installing a modchip. Especially if you do the new A+B method. Some have done it without soldering to the console at all!

Anonymous says:

May 28, 2005 at 3:48 am

Ok so I’m guessing you don’t know of any software for Mac?

But do you know where I can get the game’s without actually having too buy/know Somebody who own’s them?

racketboy says:

May 28, 2005 at 11:54 am

I’m not much of an expert on Mac burning software, but I would assume Roxio Toast (I think that’s what it’s called) should be able to do the trick.)

Email me and I can try to research it more for you.

Also, if you are looking for some game ISOs, email me and I’ll try to help you out

racketboynick AT hotmail DOT com

Thanks!

Anonymous says: