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Lanny
regular
Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 103
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I know this is going to sound silly but can anyone tell me how to make a cd?
I have Ahead Nero on my pc
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George
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3811
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Nothing silly about your question Lanny, it's the computer that's stupid!
What kind of CD do you want to make? Audio? Data?
Whatever it is click on Nero Express from your Ahead Nero programs. This is an easier program to use, here you will find a list of Options asking what you want to achieve. place your mouse arrow over the sections and just below will appear a description.
For example 'Copy entire disc' - you wish to copy one of your CD collection onto a blank CD? then choose this one, blank in Writer, disc to be copied in CDRom.
Click on 'Copy entire disc' - a dialogue box will appear - check the box for which speed of writing you wish- choose lowest available (on mine it's 8 speed). This way you will achieve the better copy. Then lower down click on 'Burn', sit back and let Nero do it's job, depending on length of disc this should take about 8 mins.
On completion a dialogue box tells you burn has been successful, click OK, Express will ask 'what do you want to do now', click on 'exit'. Out pops your CD from Writer ready to be played, manually eject the 'original' from CDRom.
That's it, all done. Come back here if you wish to know about Data (copying files and photos to CD).
Shy bairns get nowt!
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Thank you George
I have printed off your reply for future reference. I would love to learn the other applications as well. Data, photo's and audio but i don't want to sound too cheeky!
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Lanny
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Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 103
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Sorry George i forgot to register before making my reply
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Arandora
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 2420
Loc: Fylde Coast
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George,
Seems as though you've started a Masterclass! I'd like to learn about data (particularly can you automate a back-up process to secure your files?) and photos too.
The thirst for knowledge is sometimes sweeter than a pint of Stella!
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George
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3811
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First of all, Arondora, do you mean an automatic process of backing up files to CD? Not sure this can be done. I look for the easy route and method, hence the use of Nero Express for most items. I rarely stray into the main Nero Burning program, not that it's too complicated, with Express not too much brain power is needed. So if my reply to Lanny helps you, all the better.
Lanny, it's not cheeky, as I say, shy bairns get nowt, so here we go:
Using Express for copying Data: First option, Data Disc, click on there, a dialogue box opens titled
'Disc Content' below this click on blue arrow to choose where your files are to be copied from i.e 'My Documents'. At right hand side click on 'Add'> Open My Documents> choose folder and open> all files will appear in the main box>highlight each file you wish to copy>then click on 'Finished'.
Express opens another box containing files to be copied, also further opportunity to add more files should you wish. Happy with what you want to copy? then click on 'Next'.
Up comes another dialogue box ready to write your files and offering choice of writing speed, again choose lowest. In addition make sure the box 'Allow files to be added as multisession' is ticked. This allows you to use the same disc which you are about to burn when next you wish to copy more files, it's known as 'A Multisession'. Without the tick in the box you will not be allowed to use the same disc and if you had only copied about 30MB's of files to a 700MB disc then that's a waste of money.
Click on 'Burn' and let Nero do the rest. Treat your 'Photos' as Data, add to your multisession disc if you wish, I keep mine on their own disc as an Album and it's own multisession. Express recognises each multi session as soon as the disc is inserted, clever eh? Nero's not daft.
Oops! nearly forgot, when the files are being burned, when it looks like it's all over Nero will eject and immediately take the CD back into the writer. Don't touch it when the tray pops out, Nero is about to finish it's work.
One final piece of advice if I may be the cheeky one, be careful what you try to copy. Golden rule is usually, only copy the files you have created, such as Photos, Office documents, E-mails. Don't go near Windows System, anything saying .dll file or anything else, trying to copy these could leave you without an Operating System.
Shy bairns get nowt!
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Arandora
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 2420
Loc: Fylde Coast
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I was thinking along the lines of Task Scheduler being able to schedule a back-up process using some form of macro or whethe there was some piece of, preferably free, software that offers this process. At the end of the day I am inherently lazy/forgetful/indisciplined and know to my cost (when my hard disc crashed) what losing data with no back-up means!!
Thanks for all the info to Lanny. That helps me a lot.
The thirst for knowledge is sometimes sweeter than a pint of Stella!
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Barney_Rubble
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 2699
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A few other points, even if I am one of those Roxio people.  (No. I don't work for them. Just use their product.)
It seems Lanny probably does have both a CD-ROM and CD writer. Not everybody is that fortunate, so for anyone with only a CD writer and no CD-ROM, copying music CDs becomes a two stage process. First use Windows Media Player to copy the tracks to HD after going into Options and disabling everything to do with licensing.
Close Media Player and then use Nero (or in my case, Roxio) to copy it all back to a new CD-R, being careful (if it matters to you) to keep the tracks in the same order as they were on the original. Windows automatically sorts them alphabetically, so you'll have to do this manually. Come back if you need a bit more help with this.
Hope you're not planning to sell your copies. It's ok to copy music for your own use, but the music industry prefers to be the only pirates, so you could end up in trouble if you tread on their toes.
Music should always be copied to CD-Rs. Data can be copied to CD-R or CD-RW (assuming your writer supports RW).
If you want to create a data CD to keep for a long time, use a CD-R and close the session when you've finished. Closing makes it readable an (just about) any CD drive, including CD-ROMs.
If you'd rather have something that can be used like a giant floppy, or a removable "mini hard drive", continually updating, deleting, overwriting, all that sort of stuff, you need a CD-RW.
Finally, it's all down to individual preference, but when I'm copying data to a CD I prefer to use "copy and paste" or "drag and drop" from Windows explorer.
Hope that lot helps someone.
There is intelligent life on Earth, but I'm only visiting.
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George
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3811
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One comes to mind but it ain't free, Power Quest's Drive Image 7.0 price £40.
This can be set to do a full backup at a scheduled time etc. For more details go to
http://www.powerquest.com
I've installed this program and believe you me it is excellent, even a single file can be restored should you ever delete and regret it.
Shy bairns get nowt!
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Barney_Rubble
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 2699
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That's interesting, George. I'll be needing something like that soon, but what about backing the entire OS up to CD?
The reason I ask is that I'd like to make a direct replacement for my (OEM) restore CD and would prefer to keep it all, with my chosen settings, on just one disc if that's possible.
The existing disc, as supplied with the computer, uses Norton Ghost, but I've had a look at the 100+ page PDF document that comes with that and I think I'd have more chance of becoming fluent in Russian by the weekend.
I'm planning to get a second HD within about the next couple of months, and I'll certainly be creating a backup on that, but I like the idea of having a second backup that isn't inside the machine.
There is intelligent life on Earth, but I'm only visiting.
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George
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3811
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Hi Barney, I only have one hard drive and XP came installed without the restore disc, I can buy it for £60 or more. I've used Drive Image 7 to back up the lot to CD, depending on the amount to be copied, in my case 7GB, on standard compression it took 6 CD's. Time taken was 35 minutes to complete, quicker than previous version.
I don't know if the program will compress that much to allow everything on one CD. I'll check it out.
Shy bairns get nowt!
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Barney_Rubble
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 2699
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Thanks for that, George. I've got a partitioned drive with 1.9GB on C: (Windows ME), but I won't need to copy all of that. I'm planning to ditch most of "Office 2000 Professional" for a start, so that will clear some space.
It doesn't really matter about fitting it all onto one disc, but it will make it easier if I can, especially as I'm not quite sure what happens if (when) I need to reinstall. Presumably I'll be prompted for subsequent discs, but this is one area (of many) where my knowledge is a bit fragmentary.
Another worry is overwriting the MBR, which the existing disc does, destroying all my partitioning and returning it to just one gigantic (20GB anyway) C: drive. Presumably this wouldn't happen with Drive Image.
I have used an earlier version in the past to create a backup on another partition, but couldn't work out how to get the CD rewriter to work from DOS. I understand newer versions can be run from within Windows, and having a backup on the second HD should help. What I'm hoping is that, even if I have to make the first backup from DOS, I should then be able to make a CD backup from the HD backup, or am I complicating things too much?
Hope Lanny doesn't think we've hijacked his (or her) post. At least it's still relevant to the original question.
There is intelligent life on Earth, but I'm only visiting.
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George
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3811
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Have just a look round the Help contents of Drive Image regarding possible copy to one CD. Best I could see were the compression details which I copied. Before pasting, I noticed above you mentioned Windows ME, DI 7 was made for XP or 2000, I'll go back and check later to check any compatibility. In the meantime here's the compression detail:
Compression Level
Description
None
This is usually the fastest method for creating a backup image file and is most useful if storage space is not an issue. However, if you are saving the backup image file to a busy network drive, using high compression may be faster than no compression because there is less data to write to the file.
Standard
(Default) Uses low compression for a 40% average data compression ratio on backup image files.
Medium
Uses medium compression for a 45% average data compression ratio on backup image files.
High
Uses high compression for a 50% average data compression ratio on backup image files. This is usually the slowest method.
This program offers so many options than predecessor, it's worth the cash.
Shy bairns get nowt!
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George
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3811
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Drive Image 7 was created for XP and 2000, Drive Image 2002 is included in program for earlier systems such as ME.
Sorry I may have wasted your time Barney.
Shy bairns get nowt!
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Barney_Rubble
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 2699
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No problem, George. Thanks for trying anyway. We all learn something, even from apparent "dead ends".
It's not a major problem. I've still got the earlier version of Drive Image, so can do an "old HD to new HD" copy from DOS, and then come back here for whatever advice happens to be available for transferring it to CD. I've got a couple of ideas I want to ask about a bit nearer the time.
Thanks again, and I hope we've managed to help Lanny with his problem (whatever it was ).
There is intelligent life on Earth, but I'm only visiting.
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