Understanding the disc burning in your computer

In This Chapter

Understanding the disc-burning thing Inserting the disc Choosing a proper format Working with the disc in Windows Wiping out an RW disc Labeling discs Throwing away a disc
ehold the optical disc! It’s your PC’s removable media of choice. The computer eats optical discs, consuming them for their data, music, or video. Better still, your PC has the ability to create discs. Indeed, armed with a stack of recordable discs, you and your computer can become your own personal disc factory. This chapter tells you how.
Creating an optical disc on your computer is known as burning a disc. It has nothing to do with fire.
For information on creating a music CD, refer to Chapter 27. See Chapter 26 for information on creating a video DVD.

Disc Creation Overview

Making optical discs on your PC is super cinchy. You need an optical drive that can write to recordable optical media, which is pretty much standard PC hardware these days. Then you need Windows; the operating system has all the tools you need to burn an optical disc.
First, ensure that your PC came equipped with a recordable optical drive. You can tell by looking at the stickers or “tattoos” on the drive’s faceplate. Or, you may see any of the abbreviations listed in Table 24-1.
If you need help identifying your PC’s optical drive, see Chapter 9.
Second, you need software. That software is Windows, which recognizes blank optical media inserted into the recordable optical drive. Later sections in this chapter tell you what to do when Windows identifies a recordable optical disc.
Your PC may have also come with a third-party disc creation tool, such as the popular Nero program. You can use that program instead of Windows (it’s easier to use), but this topic covers only the Windows method of burning a disc.
Third, you need a recordable optical disc. This disc creation saga is perhaps the most confusing part. Thanks to the slow evolution of disc-burning technology, you can find a host of different recordable optical disc formats. Table 24-1 sorts things out for you.

The good news is that most optical drives support all the recordable disc formats. Only if you have an older PC does your optical drive not support some formats. Even then, you can easily add to the computer system an external optical drive that supports those formats. See Chapter 9.
An optical drive with the Multi label on it can pretty much record all the various optical disc formats.
Discs are cheap! I recommend buying them in 25-, 50-, or 100-disc packs.
You may not think that the discs are cheap, but when CD-Rs first came out, they were about $5 a pop. Recordable DVDs were originally $15 each!
Some CD-Rs are labeled specifically for music. These music CD-Rs are of a lower quality than data CD-Rs because music doesn’t have the same accuracy demands as data storage.
The RW format discs are more expensive than the other, write-once disc formats.

Make a Data Disc

As long as you have the proper optical drive in your PC, plenty of recordable discs, and Windows, you can make your own data discs. This section tells you how.

What to put on the disc?

The burning burning-question is “What kind of data should I put on an optical disc?” Obviously, you don’t want to use an optical disc, such as a removable hard drive. That’s because information can be written to the disc only once. When it’s full, it’s done! An RW disk can be erased and you can start over, but that’s not a practical replacement for hard drive storage. Therefore, I recommend using optical discs for archiving and data transfer.
Archiving is just a fancy word for storage. For example, when I’m done writing a topic, I archive all the text documents, figures, pictures, — even
my contract — on a disc. Even if the files don’t fill up the disc, that’s okay; archiving isn’t about maximizing storage potential. With the files safely saved on the disc, I have a secondary backup copy that I can use if I need to. The duplicate files are always there, handy on the archive disc.
Discs are also excellent for transferring information between computers, which is why new software comes on a disc. I use discs to send files in the mail that are too big to send by e-mail. (How big? Anything larger than 10MB is too big for e-mail.)

Preparing the disc for use

As with all removable media, you begin your disc creation journey with a recordable disc in one hand and your computer at the ready. Start here:
1. Put the recordable disc into the drive.
Windows is smart enough to recognize the disc and asks you what to do with it by using the AutoPlay dialog box, as shown in Figure 24-1.

Figure 24-1:
A blank disc is detected.
If you don’t see anything displayed, the disc may be defective. Fetch another. If you still don’t see anything, your PC may not have a recordable optical drive.
2. Select the option Burn Files to Disc.
The Burn a Disc dialog box shows up.
3. Type a name for the disc.
Name the disc based on its contents. Or, you can just accept the current date, which is already shown in the dialog box.
4. Choose a formatting option.
In Windows Vista, you’ll need to first click the Show Formatting Options button to reveal the formatting option choices. Two formats are used by Windows:
Like a USB Flash Drive, or Live File System: In this format, information is written to the disc immediately. You can eject the disc, use it in another computer, and then reinsert the disc and keep adding files to it. You can use the disc until it’s full.
With A CD/DVD Player, or Mastered: This format collects files to be written to the disc, storing them on the PC’s hard drive. All waiting files are written to the disc at one time. Then the disc is closed, and further writing to the disc is prevented.
Of the two formats, the Mastered format is more compatible with other optical drives, and it makes the most efficient use of disc space. The USB Flash Drive/Live File System, however, works more like traditional removable media in a PC.
5. Click the Next button.
For the USB Flash Drive/Live File System, Windows formats the disc, preparing it for use.
The CD/DVD Player/Mastered format doesn’t require preparation at this time; the disc isn’t officially prepared for use until you eject it.
6. Start using the disc.
The disc is mounted into your PC’s permanent storage system. Windows may display an AutoPlay dialog box for the disc, or it might automatically open the disc’s root folder window. The optical drive’s icon now appears in the Computer window. The disc is ready for use.

Working with a USB Flash Drive/ Live File Format disc

After setting up a USB Flash Drive/Live File Format recordable disc, discussed in the preceding section, you can work with it just like you work with any storage media: Copy files to the disc’s window, create folders, and manage files as you normally do. For a disc, information is written to the disc as soon as you copy it over. That’s why it’s the Live File System — your interaction with the disc is pretty much real-time.
When you’re ready, you can eject the disc. Windows alerts you that the disc is being prepared so that other PCs can access the information. Then the disc is ejected. You can then use the disc on another PC or reinsert it into your computer. You can continue to burn files to the disc until it’s full.
You can erase, rename, or move a file after it has been burned to a USB Flash Drive/Live File System disc, but doing so wastes disc space. If possible, try to do your file manipulations before you copy the files to the disc.

Working with a CD/DVD Player/Mastered disc

You work with a CD/DVD Player, or Mastered, disc just as you would work with any media in Windows. Files can be copied, folders can be created, and so on. The only difference you see is that the files you put on the disc appear with a download flag on their icon, as shown in the margin. The icon also appears “ghostly” or faint.
The reason for the faint download icons is that nothing is actually written until the disc is ejected. Feel free to manage the icons at any time with no fear of it’s affecting anything on the disc.

When you’re ready to burn the disc, follow these steps:

1. Open the Computer window.
2. Open the optical drive’s icon.
You see the files and folders waiting to be burned to the disc.
3. Click the Burn to Disc toolbar button. The Burn to Disc dialog box appears.
4. Enter a name for the disc.
5. Set a recording speed.
The recording speed preselected for you is, doubtless, okay — though one school of thought says that choosing the slowest recording speed ensures a reliable disc-writing session. Who knows?
6. Click the Next button.
The files are burned to the disc.
The disc is ejected automatically when it’s done.
7. Remove the disc from the drive.
8. Click the Finish button to close the Burn To Disc dialog box.
With a Mastered disc, you cannot write any additional information to the disc after it’s been burned.

Using the Burn button

Folder windows sport a Burn toolbar button, which can be used to quickly burn the folder’s contents to an optical disc. After clicking the Burn button, the PC pops open the optical drive and a dialog box prompts you to insert a writable disc into the drive. Do so.
After inserting the disc, you see the Burn a Disc dialog box, described in the section “Preparing the disc for use,” earlier in this chapter. Choose a disc file format. Windows automatically copies the files from the folder (the one where you clicked the Burn button) to the disc.
If you choose the CD/DVD Player or Mastered format, you must obey the directions from the preceding section to close and burn the disc, making it ready for use.

Erasing an RW disc

RW discs are prepared and worked with just like regular recordable discs. All information in this chapter applies to both formats. The main difference is the addition of a toolbar button that lets you reformat the RW disc and start over.

To reformat the RW disc, open the Computer window and click to select the optical drive. The Erase This Disc toolbar button appears; click that button. Follow the directions on the screen to completely erase the disc and start over.
RW discs are different from other recordable discs. It says RW on the label, and the disc is more expensive, which is most obvious when you try to taste it.
RW discs may not be readable in all optical drives. If you want to create a CD with the widest possible use, burn a CD-R rather than a CD-RW disc. For a DVD, use the DVD-R format.
It’s often said that RW discs are best used for backing up data because they can be reused over and over. However, on a disc-per-disc basis, it’s cheaper to use non-RW discs instead. And, for the sake of convenience, I recommend using an external hard drive rather than optical discs to backup your stuff. See Chapter 22.

Labeling the disc

I highly recommend labeling all removable media, from recordable discs to memory cards. Even if you name things only A or B, that’s fine because it helps you keep track of the discs.
Label your disc after it’s been written to. That way, you don’t waste time labeling what could potentially be a bad disc (one that you would throw away).
I use a Sharpie to write on the disc. Write on the label side; the other side is the one containing your important data. You don’t want to write on that.
Do not use a sticky label on your recordable optical disc. Only if the label specifically says that it’s chemically safe for a recordable disc should you use it. Otherwise, the chemicals in the sticky label may damage the disc and render the information that’s written to it unreadable after only a few months.

Disposing of a disc

Sure, you can just toss a disc into the trash. That’s okay — in most places. Some communities classify an optical disc as hazardous, and it must be properly disposed of or sent off for recycling.
If you don’t want anyone else to read the disc, you probably don’t want to throw it away intact. The best solution is to destroy the disc by getting a paper shredder that can also handle crunching optical discs.
Some folks say that you can effectively erase a disc by putting it in a microwave oven for a few seconds. I don’t know whether I trust or recommend that method. And, don’t burn a disc; its fumes are toxic.