[updated 2009.1.22]
WARNING: Be sure you have a CD and not a DVD disc. Not all Library computers have drives that can write to a DVD, even though they can read it. You may need to use a newer computer to burn to a DVD-RW or DVD-R disc.
How to burn to a CD:
1. Insert a blank CD-R or CD-RW into the drive
2. Right-click the file you want to copy, and select Send To
3. Select CD-RW Drive or CD-R Drive
4. Open My Computer (if it’s not open from the step above)
5. At the bottom of the screen, a message bubble “You have files waiting…” appears.
Click anywhere on the bubble…do not click on the x to close it.
6. The “Files Ready to Be Written to CD” screen appears.
7. Highlight the file(s) to copy. Note: If you want to keep the files already on the CD, you must
select them also by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the files.
8. Under CD Writing Tasks, click on “Write these files to CD”
9. The CD Writing Wizard screen appears. Click on Next. Note: This may take a while.
10. Click on Finish. The CD ejects automatically.
If you want to check to see whether the files copied:
Close the CD tray
Close all windows
Click on My Computer
Click on the D: drive and open the file
[-- by Martha Coleman]
What if it won’t burn to my CD?
[by Dennis Van Arsdale]
Sometimes it works, and sometimes — not too often — it doesn’t. Work, that is.
- Check to be sure that you have a CD-RW disc (RW for ReWritable) and not a CD-R disc (R for Read only). Once you finish a CD-R disc, that’s usually all you can put on it, even if it wasn’t full. A CD-RW can have more added.
- Be sure you have room on the CD-RW. Check the amount of space left on the disc and then see if you’re trying to add file(s) which are too large. You may need to delete something first to make room.
- You cannot save to the same file name as one already on the disc. You have to delete the old file on the disc before saving the new version. (Yes, this is different than on the computer and on USB flash drives. You cannot save “over” or “update” an old version on a CD.)
- Sometimes even a Big Brand Name company can put out a lemon. Maybe the disc itself is just defective. If you bought several, try another one. And another. If you can use some of a pack, but not others, then the unusable ones are defective and you should mark them as defective so you don’t waste time on them again.
- Wait — is that a CD or is it a DVD disc? There are DVD-RW discs, but they may not work in many DVD drives which can write to a CD but not to a DVD. Many older Library computers do not have DVD-writing drives, even though they can play DVDs. (DVD writing drives were a later feature.)
