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Ok, I'm not a noob to computing in general or even backing up a few DVDs. Been there. But I'm a total noob as to backing up Audio CDs. Can someone briefly and simply explain how this is done? A few steps, a popular/free program or two, a link to a guide...anything.

My situation is I have 3 audio CDs (shows as 1kb .cda in Explorer). I simply want to back up these 3 audio CDs both onto 1 DVD-R and 3 CD-Rs. I don't think I need anything fancy like encoding or converting. Just copy/burn.

Thank you in advance, I'm totally new here and so far I've downloaded the top 3 most popular encoder/rippers from download.com: Easy CD-DA Extractor, dBAmp Music Converter, CDex.

^Download a 4th program, EAC - Exact Audio Copy.
Make sure you have enough space on your HDD.

Follow this guide: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=101833

Select all the tracks, right click, copy uncompressed.

Open your burning program of choice, use the Audio CD template, add the .wav files obtained from the "copy uncompressed" action, and burn.

2 quick questions to your reply, thank you.

1) Why is EAC preferred over the other (simpler looking) programs I listed in my OP?
2) I heard someone else say I can just simply use Nero to do 'disc copy'?

Nero is one of the simple solutions, EAC does bit perfect copies of your audio so it's up to you just how much effort and how perfect/accurate you want your copies to be.

Nero is the easiest and best solution if you're going to make one to one copies. However, if you're going to make a compilation on a DVD, EAC (or any of the other utilities) will work. Keep in mind that while EAC is the "experts' choice", it can have a steep learning curve if you want to get the best results.