Reducing Dependancy on Optical Media: Is it legal to back up my software DVDs?

[OzyOly]

I'm getting fed up with all the disks I have cluttered about. I don't use any of them or even my DVD drive apart from when I'm restoring my Mac software.

All my audio CDs have been ripped to itunes and thrown away, all my DVDs have been ripped to an external HD and stored away. Any new films or music I just buy from iTunes. Most new software I buy from the app store or I get digital downloads from other stores e.g MS office.
The only remaining disks I have are Apple restore DVDs including iLife 11, Adobe CS4. Now I want to get rid of them and back them up another way as I'm wanting to get rid of my MBP and get a MBA eventually seeing as I don't use the DVD drive much and would prefer less weight.

My questions are;

Can I legally back up Adobe CS4 to an external hard drive, is it as simple as copying the dmg through disk utility to an external hard drive and mounting the image when I'm installing or is there a media checker like with windows software? Do adobe offer a digital download where I can just put in my £350 keycode and download from their site?

Secondly, can I create my own USB restore drive for MacOSX and iLife '11, like Apple offer with the MBA so that I don't have to use the restore DVDs?

Cheers.

 

[robj20]

Dont see why not i have my windows 7 on a USB stick, using the program microsoft supply. Its not the media its the license you paid for.
Although its a grey area when it comes to some copy protected media.

 

[OzyOly]

Dont see why not i have my windows 7 on a USB stick, using the program microsoft supply. Its not the media its the license you paid for.
Although its a grey area when it comes to some copy protected media.

You can put Windows on USB drives? That's handy. I have windows 7 ultimate that I get free from Uni, I wouldn't mind that on USB for when I program my spartan 3e.

 

[robj20]

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

 

[OzyOly]

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

Cheers, I have the ISO on an external hard drive at the moment, I'll put it onto a USB flash drive so that I can install bootcamp without a DVD drive.

 

[OzyOly]

It's amazing what 10 minutes of googling can bring up.

http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html

Not sure if this will work if I combine both restore DVD and iLife into one image, but I'll try it out now...

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Should have read the sticky

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9575528&postcount=14

I always clone the Install DVDs to portable drives, because they are much quicker when it comes to reformatting. If you have a NAS or even a firewire drive you can half the install time, because you aren't limited by the drive IO speed.