Ok, One thing I keep reading is "Just one scratch and the CD is useless. Now call me crazy but isn't that the case with any CD?

As I see this, this isn't something that everyone would want to use in a normal situation, but if you have anything you REALLY don't want anyone to see, then this might be a good option. Lets not forget that you don't HAVE to burn it to a CD, an ISO image on the hard drive would work as well.

My question are thus:

Does one REALLY need the cracked CDFS.VXD to access the data, or does that simply make it easier to access the file? Can one instead "Rip" the data using standard software (CD-Paranoia, CDex, or whatever) and then follow the steps to finish processing the data?

If not, what options exist to do similar things under NT/2k/XP/MacOs/*nix?

Skruddgemire