Consequences of Changing File Extensions?

[HugePizza]

I have just used CloneCd to create an image of my copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The following happened:

CloneCd created 4 files. All of them were named "IMAGE", and they all had different file extensions: .cdd, .cue, .img, and .sub. The .img was the largest file, by far, at 556 MB, and so i assumed it was the "game" file.

Now, i wanted to burn the game to a disc so that i could try playing the game from its original disc, from a burned copy of the game, and from the file only. However, Roxio only recognized the .cue file when i told it to burn from an image. So, i renamed the file extension of the .img file to .iso, which was recognized by Roxio, then burned the image to a disc. This seemed to work fine, meaning that the game started properly through both the burned cd and the .iso file alone.

BUT i have the following questions:

Why are there multiple files created during the process of making a 1:1 copy/clone (this seems more suspicious knowing that i can burn just 1 of the 4 files to a disc and still play the game)?

Why was changing the file type as easy as right-clicking?
Why have i read about people using software to do this?
What are the consequences of doing this?
Why can i no longer right-click and change the file type after it's been associated with Roxio-recognized file type?

thank you in advance for your knowledge.

[Mystic]

Renaming the file extension doesn't change the file type.

Software is the only way to change it.

If you change the file type to many times the image can become corrupted.

Edit: If you use PowerISO you can dump SOTN straight into ISO format.

[Jale]

As far as I know, the .bin and .cue files allow you to burn the .img with any CD recording software that don't normaly recognize .img files.

[Khmer]

Use UltraISO, PowerISO, MagicISO, etc. to convert them to w/e you want. Changing the file type will not convert it, the data stays the same. There aren't any consequences of changing the file extension, it stays the same file type no matter what.