Installing backups of Copy Protected PC Games

[mw4_fan]

I recently bought Mechwarrior 4, which I understand is protected by SafeDisc. I am a newbie to this backup thing, so bear with me if I sound dumb.
When I try to use either CloneCD or Blindread/write, I get errors during the write portion of the transfer. Creating the *.ccd or *.bwt files is no problem, but when it comes time to write I get errors. I checked, and my reader and burner are both supported by both programs.

My questions are:

1. If I do a simple "Copy all Files" to CD-R rather than a perfect 1:1 copy, will the game still install successfully from from the CD-R's?
2. If yes, I realize that the game will unlikely run because of the copy protection. So if I do the unSafeDisc thing after installing from CD-R, then run the No-CD patch available on GameCopyWorld, will the game work from the hard drive. (I ran the patch successfully after installing original game.)
3. What could I be doing wrong with CloneCD? Is it a settings thing?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.