Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 and Backup question!

I back up to an external HD with Ghost 10 and it appears to work fine, so even though Studio 6 offers a conventional backup feature I don't really need it. However, it does have the ability to burn ISO files (which, admittedly I know very little about) which I see mentioned during backup discussions all of the time. I included a screenshot of the ISO burning options and I was wondering what if anything I might use it for relative to back up and what would be the reason/advantage of doing this. Thank You!
http://xs218.xs.to/xs218/07334/ScreenShot010.png

 

The first option burns an disc image file (like ISO) to CD/DVD.

The second option creates an image file from an existing CD/DVD. You can create a backup of a disc for example.

And teh third option lets you build your own image file.

Disc Images dont necessarily relate to backups. If you want to create a backup of your entire disc just use Ghost like your are already, and if you want to backup individual files you can just burn them as a data cd/dvd.

 

ratchet,
I did this with ISO-files :
When I bought my computer, I got a few CD's of
- MS Windows XP pro SP2
- MS Office 2000 pro
- ATI drivers + software
- NVIDIA drivers + software
- CREATIVE drivers + software
- CANON drivers + software
- etc.

I have only one CD of each and these are hard to get back, if they are damaged or lost.
So I created an ISO-file of each CD and now I can reproduce these CD's over and over again, even when the original CD's are damaged by accident or when they are worned out or when they are lost/stolen.
I also created an extra cloned CD of each with the ISO-file and they work like the original.
I also collected all these ISO-files together and stored them twice on DVD's.

 

Thanks EA! Now see if this would work? My install CD is only SP1. I know SP3 is approaching, however, if had to reformat there'd be a lot of catching up to do. I have XP Pro SP2 CD from work. Can I rip an ISO of that to my HD then Burn a new CD from the HD ISO which could be used to format? Or don't I understand the concept!

 

I would just make a copy of the WinXP SP2 CD using Nero or other cd writing program.

If you have just one CD drive, it will make a temporary image and then burn it or if you have two drives some software will let you make a "on-the-fly" copy.