Copying a DVD Movie to the Computer or Laptop When you are Using Windows Xp

Written By: admin on December 6, 2009 No Comment

It is easy to copy DVDs. What is more, thanks to special DVD burning software, now you can copy even system files to DVD. For many people it is still not clear how you can achieve this under Windows XP. If you are among them, here are some tips, which will help you.

First you need to insert the DVD into the DVD drive. If your drive is older and it is a CD-ROM, the procedure won?t work. After the DVD is inserted, use the standard copy/paste command to copy the necessary files into the folder where you want them to be. As a result, you will see many files. Look at their size because chances are that the largest files are the movie files, while all the rest are just supporting files.

Next, you need a DVD ripper program. There are such programs, which allow to turn any VCD into DVD format and any rlv format to mp3, mp4, VLC, etc. Some of the DVD ripper programs are free, while others offer a trial version for free and then you need to pay if you want to use the full version for longer.

One thing you must do before the actual copying of files to your hard disk is to make sure that your hard disk has enough free space. You need free space for the DVD itself (this could be as much as 8GB) and for a buffer the operating system needs for copying the files. So, if the DVD is 8GB, then 10GB free space is the minimum for a successful copy operation. Additionally, you shouldn?t run any other programs, while you are copying the files because this can lead to corrupted (and useless) data.

Nowadays there are rewritable DVDs and their advantage is that you can write on them and delete them many times. Rewritable DVDs are great for recording data that must be frequently rewritten ? i.e. file archives. If you already know how to burn a DVD, you will soon notice that rewritable DVDs are almost the same, the only difference being the speed of writing.

Windows XP allows not only to copy DVDs to hard disk. Under Windows XP you can also copy a hard disk to a DVD. You would like to do this when you need a backup of your hard disk. Since hard disks are not eternal because they get damaged or a virus wipes their contents, backups are vital. So, it is great to backup your important files to a DVD. Burning to DVD is done with the help of a DVD burning program. For instance, Nero or Roxio are good Windows DVD burning programs. As a rule, DVD burning programs are user friendly and sometimes you need just a few clicks to copy from your hard drive to a DVD or the other way round.

Isaiah Henry is a writer on dvd ripper solutions. Visit DVDShrinkNow.com for more information on dvd copy and dvd ripper software. Ask quesions and give experiences on our dvd copy forum.

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