posted on May, 25 2006 @ 04:47 AM
Most CD/DVD writing software, such as Nero gives you the opportunity - when you're writing a disk - to either write to a CD/DVD writer (RAM) or to
the Hard drive, i.e. an "Image" of the CD\DVD. This image is also called an "ISO" or "Rip". The process differs from one software package to
the next, but most of the time you have this choice where you need to choose to which device you want to write.
You can't do anything with the "copy" of the DVD on your Hard drive, other than write it to another DVD. Thus it is a true backup. It usually takes
up a whole lot of space, so I'd say it's just cheaper/better to copy it to another DVD. If that's not an option, Mechanic's suggestion will also
work - to "shrink" it to other formats.
Let's leave it at that not to be too technical, as we're bordering illegal activities.