EDITED OUT: Never mind, I shouldn't hijack the thread with a question on AoE.

And then some junkie decides just to smoke our data, pooof!
Yes it is a good game and you should definitely play it!
Did that answer your question?

The last time I played AoE, I played it with the ISO version because I was too lazy to keep inserting the physical CD, especially since I would have had to use an USB DVD drive for that. Meh.

Yes, my all time favorite RTS, when the Rise of Rome expansion is included. And most definitely NOT the definitive edition, which does NOT work the same (assign more than three villagers to a gazelle for example and watch as they stand around waiting because the definitive version has some sort of bigger collision area that only allows sometimes just TWO villagers on a gazelle at once. Changes strategy where I used to assign 10 at a time, and they would pick that thing clean in seconds.

My last copy was purchased at Amazon and was DRM free (no disc on the drive required) but that disc (and my original boxed version) were destroyed when my basement flooded and I can't for the life of me find a downloadable digital copy to purchase anywhere (other than the definitive edition which I do NOT want... already have it on Steam, played it a few times and still come back to the one copy I have installed on an old laptop. Just played it again last week. But I wish I could find a downloadable digital version to buy to have moving forward. That was the gist of my first post but since it's hijacked now I'll ask anyway. Anyone know if a downloadable digital version of the original AoE is available for purchase anywhere?

SORRY TO OP for the hijacking.

EDIT: I checked Amazon, and they had some boxed versions available (selling for $90 lol I guess they're rare items now) but my current laptop doesn't even have an optical drive (a little more on topic with thread lol) so buying that doesn't solve my problem. Plus.. $90... for AoE... yikes!

Only die hard archivists and autismos like that one youtube reviewer still use those forms of optical media. Make several copies of your installers across multiple mediums (thumb drives/HDD/etc) and keep track of their condition. Easy peasy. Or just say your games all got backed up to disk via boating accident ;)
You don't have to power them up every now and then like with SSDs.

I have an internal DVD drive in my recent(ish) desktop PC and I use it at least weekly.

Just not for games. All my physical games have backups on hard drives.

Perhaps use stone as media