Blud, I have this problem. But with 3.5" floppy disks.
I have an external cd drive that I plug in via USB for this purpose. Tech ain’t limiting you.
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.
Meanwhile I still have a couple disc drives and the one that came with my laptop is still with me but has been replaced by a caddy to access my data from the old hard drive alongside my smol new SSD.
And I have so many discs too…
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.
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. :(
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
Magnifying glass + lots of typing ones and zeros.
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.
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.
ive still got cds with programs that just wont even install on 10
Sometimes you have better luck running old Windows stuff on Linux through WINE than on modern Windows. And sometimes you don’t, it really depends.
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
I got an unopened box with a USB DVD/Blue ray player. I am good.
They sell the drive as a USB item, buy one of those and enjoy.
I have several dozen optical drives. It’s pretty great.
