Does a CD get Deleted when you Rip the CD?

“When you rip a CD with Windows Media Player does the original file on the CD get deleted?”

The contents of most CD media is read-only, which means your computer or CD player can see the contents and play them back, but cannot change the CD contents or delete them.

Image of CD being inserted into a computer CD tray.

This means that short of scratching the CD or physically damaging it in some other way, you can’t lose the contents of the CD. Ripping a CD doesn’t ruin it, it makes a copy of the files on the CD, in a format that will be compatible with the software used to make the copy. Ripping a CD with Windows Media Player (or iTunes or any other CD ripper) makes a copy of the contents of the CD in a different file format, without changing the contents of the CD.