for reference, you're looking for a dvd ripper.
this isn't the kinda of thing that best buy would have...and you're probably better off doing the research on your own instead of asking some tech person.
basically, ignore everything the person at best buy said.
http://www.doom9.net/
go to this site's downloads section and look for de-scrambling/ripping tools.
dvd Decrypter can handle pretty much every dvd except those with sony's ArccOS protection (in which case I believe dvd fab decrypter does the job)
follow
these instructions and you should be just fine
would you mind getting a link to that forum that you mentioned?
I'm guessing that the person tried messing with whatever program they were posting about and got burned.