To clean the disc, dampen a soft cloth with water, or preferably rubbing alcohol, and start wiping. Normally, only a CD-ROM reader would suffice but it’s 2021, and external DVD writers are the only option.īefore starting the ripping process, make sure to clean your CDs properly to know for certain whether the disc is done for, or still alive. If your notebook or desktop PC is not too old, chances are you will need an external DVD writer as modern computers usually do not have any. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the process.įirst, you will need equipment to read the discs. So, expect a few failures if you decide to rip your PSX discs. Some of them struggled to read and some others were not even detected by the PC. The vast majority of my humble 40ish-piece PSX game collection did work just fine. Your storage conditions, room temperature and humidity also affect this process. Disc rot is also real, which naturally happens on the surface around the 20-year mark, and unfortunately, I experienced this with some of my titles. PSX discs are covered with a black layer that was expected to eliminate piracy back in the day, and they are fragile after over 20 years of use. That’s why any retro gamer should make backups to safeguard the content. Compact discs are a fragile media format when it comes to long-term archiving. (Shutterstock Photo)īefore we begin, warnings are in order: keep your hopes low.

And to save you from trouble, I'll share with you how I did.Ī game disk sits in Sony's original PlayStation console in Melbourne, Australia, July 23, 2018. Then I had an idea: what if I ripped all my physical discs, which I’ve been safekeeping for over 20 years because I’m a sentimental maniac, to keep the original contents forever?Īnd that’s what I did. While smell has been proven to be the biggest trigger of memories, doing that perfect combo in Tekken 3 with your fingers, listening to old school soundtracks or feasting your eyes on 240p pixelated graphics can induce a wave of nostalgia.Īs a geek obsessed with both nostalgia and gaming, there is nothing more emotion-evoking than playing the good ol' games from the original PlayStation era, widely known as “PSX” because of its codename while it was in early development.Īs a retro gamer myself who lives in a country in which console gaming is synonymous with the PlayStation, I’ve been playing a lot of late 1990s/early 2000s PSX titles lately, as I have the modern iteration of the console, the PS Classic that has an HDMI output.

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