OmniDrive turns PC Blu-ray drives into legal retro-game dumpers

Game collectors and preservationists can now legally rip their retro GameCube, Wii, and Xbox games using a compatible Blu-ray disc drive. PC owners yearning to back up their retro games and create local digital libraries finally have a straightforward, legally compliant path using OmniDrive.

For context, OmniDrive is custom firmware that allows users to turn compatible optical drives into rippers for various consoles’ proprietary disc formats. This lets game preservation enthusiasts legally back up disc-based games and dump their own discs without ethical gray areas or dabbling in piracy.

So far, retro video game preservation communities have embraced the tool with open arms. According to sites like the Redump.org wiki, “OmniDrive is highly recommended by Redump, and the firmware directly replaced the old modified JB8 firmware previously recommended by Redump in 2022.”

Currently, OmniDrive is capable of reading and dumping a wide variety of discs for 12 major platforms, including the Nintendo GameCube, Wii, and Wii U; Microsoft’s Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S; Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 5; Sega’s Dreamcast; as well as standard lead-out CDs, DVDs, and more.

OmniDrive was initially released in February of this year and is currently on version 1.0.2. Developer RibShark has made OmniDrive fully open source. However, it’s built for specific drives that use the MediaTek MT1959 chipset from Hitachi-LG Data Storage. Compatibility extends to certain desktop writers, such as the ASUS BW-16D1HT, and slim drives like the LG BU40N and BP50NB40.

Before retro enthusiasts can start ripping and dumping their games, they must ensure they have a compatible drive by using the MakeMKV diagnostic app, which shows whether the drive uses the correct MT1959HWDN chipset.

They can then proceed to flash the drive using MakeMKV’s sdftool and the OmniDrive firmware. Everything is fairly straightforward afterward: users only need to use free software like Media Preservation Frontend or redumper to create ISO files or raw disc dumps for Xbox, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, and Nintendo GameCube titles.

However, a word of caution: flashing a drive carries the risk of bricking it if the wrong firmware is applied, so users should double-check everything and ensure they have the correct disc drive model before proceeding.