I'm about to buy a new, very-highly reviewed DVD/CD RW combo drive from NEC. The problem is it's OEM, and I've never bought anything OEM before. So I guess I have 2 questions.

1) Do OEM components usually come with any kind of software?

2) What is a good, affordable DVD/CD copying software? Spending less than $20 would be prefereable; FREE is of course optimal.

Thanks a pantload.

I got software drivers and studff all with mine, and included. I have Nero for the burner side of it, and intervideo win DVD for the player. I've found both of these to be excellent. If your new drive doesnt have any software and drivers with it, then it might be worth checking these two out.

Two shareware programs are Alcohol and Blindwrite. Unfortunatly, they only give a month of free use. They work dandy in that time period though.

My friend uses this, although I personally got Nero with my OEM combo drive:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/clonecd.html

Thanks Rednick - I love Clone CD, and was under the impression that the company that made it had been shut down. Now I can see I was thankfully mistaken. That's what I'll be picking up.

No problem, DR. :)

They HAVE been shut down, I remember trying to find their website a few months ago and there were just a bunch of fake sites, and the proper one with a shut-down notice.

I guess their current address explains it all:

SlySoft Inc.
Dickenson Bay Street
John Henry Bldg.
St. John's
Antigua (West Indies)

They just went underground to avoid problems with tight-hats. ;)

AFAIK, CloneCD/DVD and Alcohol 120% are supposed to be the best disc-image programs out there. Have only used CloneCD and it did the job quite well.

Yes, CloneCD is awesome. I've been able to successfully copy several major games with it. I can only assume their DVD software is just as good.

Alcohol 120% and Nero is all I've ever used... I wouldn't bother buying n e thing, just download it...

Actually, now that I've done a little research, I've found that Alcohol 120% will do everything and more than all 3 of the Clone programs combined (ie, both DVD and CD's), for $30 dollars less. It's also newer technology, and hence can get through the newer copy protections easier. I just ordered my new burner (suh-weeetness) and will download the trial as soon as it arrives.

Has anyone else had any good experiences with Alcohol 120% they'd like to relate? I'm all ears, and would greatly appreciate any advice.

I've only ever used Nero, but I've heard good things about Alcohol (stupid name aside).

I have managed to make quite functionable nice images with win-ISO. I am not sure if this programs burns down the image on a CD as well though.

Is win-ISO similar to ISO buster? This is another favourite of mine normally used for decompressing large cd/dvd imgs.

I would recomend Nero and Alcohol 120%. CloneCD is a great piece of software, but unfortunatly recent anti-piracy protections have been using the tactic of preventing the game from starting if CloneCD is installed on the machine. It's a bit ironic that this "feature" harms honest customers more than pirates.

@ Pyro

I have had it installed together with such recent releases as HL2, FarCry, Evil Genius, etc, and no problems. IMO it's only a matter of renaming a certain file that has been black-listed by the "anti-piracy" software. Like in Daemon Tools where it asks you to name that file during install. ;)

I have no idea Slayer, win-ISO is the only one I have used and it worked great for me. I tend to be really impressed with software which actually do what they are supposed to, ie which work. I tend to have quite low expectations and when something works I am blown away.

@ Wirhe

Maybe so :) But still, it's not a good sign that anti-piracy software has started attempting to detect it, because the next generation of protection might detect it even better. That's why I think it's a better idea to go with software that hasn't been deemed "untrustworthy" by the "industry".