Burn your own CDs

There are a couple of reasons you might want to save or burn files onto a CD. For example, you can:

• Store old and important documents on CD to have as backups. I regularly backup important documents for work and at home.
• Keep copies of all of your digital photographs. I've collected hundreds of pictures of my kids and it's nice to know they're saved in more then one place.
• File old e-mail from work. You can't keep all of your e-mail in Outlook, so it's nice to store it somewhere in case you should ever need it for reference.
• Create personalized music CDs to play in your car or give as gifts.

I’m thinking about this today because I dropped my computer while walking to a morning meeting. It took a pretty hard fall onto the sidewalk, but luckily my Toshiba laptop came back to life. If it hadn’t turned back on, and without the CD back-ups, I would have lost a lot of files and memories.

If you're running Windows XP, then you don't have to go out and buy expensive CD–recording software. Windows XP features built–in CD burning.

To burn a CD using Windows XP:

1. Insert a blank CD–R or CD–RW in your CD drive. You must have a CD–R (writable) or CD–RW (rewritable) drive. A dialog box opens, asking if you want to open a writable CD folder. Click OK.
2. On the Start menu, click My Computer, and navigate to the drive and folder where the files you wish to copy are stored.
3. Select the files you wish to copy, and drag/drop or copy/paste them to the open CD recording folder.
4. In the left pane of the CD folder window, click Write these files to CD.

Now you're all set. Just remember not to copy more files than than the CD will hold. Check the CD's storage capacity before you get started.

--Jason Kozleski

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 01, 2006
  Hi,
  
  It's a pity that XP doesn't support DVD-burning. Now I still have to buy that burning programm to backup my documents and pictures on a single DVD instead of different CDs.
  

• Anonymous
  August 02, 2006
  I appreciate any hints or tips you can supply to get the most out of my computer!  I am 85 years old; it is a long uphill jog to catch up with you young-uns.  Thanks!

• Anonymous
  August 02, 2006
    How do i convert my cd's which is pictures and music to play on my dvd's It plays on my computer but not my dvd players and I have five of them and nothing
     w r w

• Anonymous
  August 07, 2006
  Hi:
  What type of CD Dish a person has to buy to copy music and wave songs... I have windows media 10 and Windows XP Software.
  thankyou,
  frank
  
  fdfrancis@adelphia.net

• Anonymous
  August 07, 2006
  I THOUGHT INFORMATION WAS VERY HELPFUL. VERY EASY TO UNDERSTAND!

• Anonymous
  August 07, 2006
  I just wanna know is that possible to write multisession CDs in Win XP

• Anonymous
  August 10, 2006
  I am trying to find out how to find and open the "microsoft" file "cd burning"."search" says it exists, In my data backups it shows that when I back up data it goes to this file. But I cannot find or access the contents of this file to burn the data to a Cd.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2006
  Iv been triyng to burn my cds i have a windows XP I followed this intructions but I get lost in the 4th step

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2006
  Please tell me why sometimes xp will not drag and drop. In fact twice xp quit recognizing my dvd drives and I had to reload xp and then all my application software.
  
  Something in xp drops the ball. uninstalling the cd drivers and then rebooting for plug and play to install new drivers did not work.
  
  Thanks

• Anonymous
  August 28, 2006
  I cannot get win XP to reconize my CD Writer

• Anonymous
  August 28, 2006
  I cannot get win XP to reconize my CD Writer
  All it want to use is Image Recorder which
  will not write to a CD or even reconize a disk
  in the drive Any help please.  Russ Fraser
  Thank you
  

• Anonymous
  September 05, 2006
  Will the next windows (Vista) be
  able to burn cd's and dvd's?

• Anonymous
  September 05, 2006
  <font face="Papyrus">This is very useful for a beginner, I give it a 4.5 though because you didn't mention burning music CDs with Windows Media Player.</font>

• Anonymous
  September 12, 2006
  Is it possible to add files to a CD-R incrementally or must all backup be done only once?  That is, can I follow the instructions above and burn say, 5 files to a CD-R; then, come back tomorrow and add another 3 files?

• Anonymous
  September 13, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 13, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 14, 2006
  I have a problem please help me. I have audio files which are voice recordings that are saved on my hard drive as WAV.  I was originally able to listen to the recordings but now that I have gone back to listen to them again they have error code:-  COOOD1197  Cannot play the file.  I need these recordings asap can you help?  Do I need to reconfigure the files?  Please help me!!!

• Anonymous
  October 22, 2006
  after reading your instructions on burning a CD from program files , I found it extremely easy and knowledgeable in the process.  thank you very much for making this information excessiveable.   Marvin GITTENS

• Anonymous
  November 13, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 19, 2008
  Vista dropped CD drive 2 times.  I am unable to retrieve or input the path.  My computer will not restart or shut down.  It stalls and stays that way until the power is cut off.

• Anonymous
  May 29, 2009
  PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=tiptalk-from-microsoft-at-home-amp-at-work-burn-your-own-cds

• Anonymous
  June 15, 2009
  PingBack from http://debtsolutionsnow.info/story.php?id=7600

• Anonymous
  June 18, 2009
  PingBack from http://thestoragebench.info/story.php?id=2151

• Anonymous
  June 19, 2009
  PingBack from http://mydebtconsolidator.info/story.php?id=13847