This is a rather long narrative, but I've tried to keep it to a minimum.

My wife bought a used DVD "Harry Potter - Goblet of Fire" special edition (2 Discs). She is going to give it to her 14 yr old grandson, who is a Harry Potter nut.

She asked me to make a back-up (of both discs) so he wouldn't damage the originals (scratches, etc.) watching them so often. This special edition with a second disc is OOP and very difficult to find (used).

I tried DVDShrink and Disc 1 was so badly scratched that I got read errors. No point in trying to back that up. Going to buy another copy.

I then tried Disc 2 and it could read it OK, but about 25-30% into the Analysis step, prior to encoding, it shut down my machine. It was just like a power outage. Blam!

So, I used DVD Decrypter to 'rip' all the files to my hard drive. That was successful and I have a directory with all the files on my G: drive. The PC can play it just exactly they way you would play it on a DVD player (it has many interactive menus, etc.).

It is also to large (6.5 Gb) to burn onto a regular DVDR (4.7 Gb).

So I tried using DVDShrink again, this time importing files from the hard drive directory. Same result. Blam! PC shut down.

Then I tried to use DVD Rebuilder. It went through the first phase and then about 10% into the second phase, blam! Another shut down.

This has never happened to me using these programs. Anyone have any idea what is happening?

Since I had all the files on my hard drive (thanks to DVD Decrypter) I decided I would use a video editor and slap together a DVDR that had a simple menu and would play the xxx.VOB files.

While I was importing the VOB files the editor program told me that all (9) VTS_1-9_0.vob files were either corrupted or were not the correct format. Could that be where the bomb has been placed?

The whole DVD is very complicated in it's construction and it is going to take a while to sort out those other VOB files (there are 12) because they are not just simple serial clips. For example the opening screen is imbedded about 80% into the 12 VOB and ends about 90% into it.

I don't know much about the details of DVD structure, but I think those 0.vob files control where the player gets it's image frames for any particular menu selection.

A friend told me about DVDFab's Free DVD program which I downloaded and ran. It told me that it had found Uops protections in the VOB and BUP files and removed them.

Apparently, that did not fix all the problems. It allowed me to advance further into the Analysis step (from 10% to 18%) but then, blam! PC complete shutdown.

Anyway, I would appreciate any comments that would provide me with some insight.

Thanks,

Here a test try to play the originals in standalone completely all the way through for both dvd and see if you get any problem just watching them. Those sudden shutdown seems to indicate a PS problem from overheating it looks like. When was the last time you dusted out the computer and heat sinks? Did you properly clean the DVD media? DVDshrink hasn't been updated for quite some time by the Author so it probably won't handle the newer protection on the DVD. As for DVD decryptor I don't know about that software much.

Thanks coolcolors.

It was a PC overheating problem. I never suspected that since it only occurred when I was running DVDShrink and DVD Rebuilder. They must be very CPU intensive.

I moved all the VIDEO_TS files to my B machine and cranked up DVDShrink. It ran the Analysis in about 45 seconds and the Encoding phase in about 6 minutes.

I checked my A machine and the cooling fan assembly had come loose and the heat sinks had stopped making physical contact with the CPU. It's held with four plastic clips and two have failed. I will need to buy another cooling fan assembly (about $20) as they don't sell the clips separately.

My A machine is running as before (I'm using it to make this post) so it seems that it only overheats when it gets a real barn burner to execute.