I have a dvd reader and a seperate dvd writer, both IBM...is it possible to bypass the harddrive and rip/burn direcly to the writer?
No. This is because the source disk will alomst certainly be encrypted, and even if it isn't will probably need processing/authoring to fit on a single DVD-R. If you have a previosuly authored 4.36GB unencrypted disk, you could copy 'in the fly' using software such as Nero etc. Use the guide in the articles section, or in this forum for DVD2ONE, my personally preferred processing software, or browse these forums for other multi-software solutions, or shell out $99 for DVDxCOPY, another great piece of software which produces identical copies, only across two discs. Regards, Paul.