One way to copy a CD-ROM on a VMS system is to mount the CD-ROM device using MOUNT /FOREIGN, and then use COPY to create an image file which may be used with a program like CDRECORD to make the copy.
Unfortunately, COPY does this very slowly. QREADCD is a C program which uses low-level (QIO) I/O to copy a CD-ROM much more quickly than DCL COPY (about 6X on an AlphaStation 200 4/233 with an NEC 40X CD-ROM drive). For example, with the latest (27-NOV-2004) version of QREADCD (using an AOL 5.0 CD-ROM):
alp $ pipe show time ; copy cd1: aol5_copy.img ; show time 29-SEP-2004 20:21:41 %COPY-W-INCOMPAT, ALP$DKA400:[].; (input) and ALP$DKA0:[SMS.cdr]AOL5_COPY.IMG;1 (output) have incompatible attributes %COPY-E-READERR, error reading ALP$DKA400:[].; -RMS-F-RER, file read error -SYSTEM-F-ILLBLKNUM, illegal logical block number %COPY-W-NOTCMPLT, ALP$DKA400:[].; not completely copied 29-SEP-2004 20:33:06 [Time: 00:11:25 = 685s.] alp $ pipe show time ; qreadcd cd1: aol5_qrcd.img ; show time 28-NOV-2004 00:09:52 Total bytes read = 143693824. Time (s) = 76. 28-NOV-2004 00:11:09 [Time: 00:01:17 = 77s.]