 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Recording ("Burning") CDs Gary Taylor |
A Recordable Compact Disc (CD-R) has a layer of dyes covered by a thick layer of plastic. A CD Writer (or "Burner") has a powerful laser beam that can penetrate the plastic layer and "burn" or etch into the dye layer, leaving pits of varying depth that a CD Reader can detect. Thus a CD Writer actually burns information into the blank CD and this is a permanent image/memory/recording of the information (Read Only Memory hence the second part of "CD-ROM"). Relatively new on the market are the CD Rewriters. These can burn a CD-RW (Recordable Writable) and later erase and reburn/rewrite that CD-RW to make a new record or image.
Advertising states that burning a disc is easy and foolproof. Experience has taught that this blurb is almost true IF everything is set up correctly and certain precautions are followed. This article mentions most of the preliminaries, using one type of software and one brand of burner as an example. The following suggestions apply to all burners and most burner software.
There are two common types of controllers for the CD Writer or burner: the SCSI ("scuzzy") and the IDE ("EyeDeEee"). The SCSI controller requires a SCSI card to be installed in the computer; the IDE controller can connect to an empty IDE slot which is already available in most PCs. Data transfer is faster with a SCSI device but the BIOS on the SCSI card can interfere with the BIOS on the PC's motherboard. All burners should come with the appropriate software to drive it and usually the SCSI types come complete with the SCSI card. The burners are all "good" and reliable and are reasonably priced if bought at a swap meet. They may be described as 8X4 - this means the burner reads data at 8 speed and writes data at 4 speed.
A reliable and common software for burners is Adaptec's Easy CD Creator, now selling as version 4.0 (although the earlier version seems more reliable). As soon as one opens the Easy CD Creator, there are choices to be made; use CD Copier or Create a CD. More of this later.
First Steps
Before burning a disc, ensure that there will be NO interferences during the burn. Turn OFF all background programs such as screensavers, energy savers, virus checkers, maintenance managers, RealPlayer, etc. These programs usually have an icon sitting in the taskbar at the bottom of the desktop screen. It is advisable to keep one's computer at maximum efficiency by running C1eanDisk, ScanDisk and Defragmenting frequently - I do this at least once a week. Do not switch on/off heavy-demand household appliances, washing machines and so on during the burn; do not play with the mouse during the burn. Your mouse uses a considerable amount of processing power.
Check that the CD to be copied is clean. Greasy marks and scratches add up to failure and one produces frisbees instead of readable CDs.
Always handle CDs by their edges and poke your index or middle finger into the CD hole when handling these precious discs. Perspiration is acidic and can be greasy. Badly scratched CDs result from excessive vibration during transit, or by twisting the CD round whilst locating it on the central boss of the CD container. There are proprietary cleaners and "scratch removers" for dirty/damaged CDs. K-Mart and many other stores sell these products, as well as special purpose tools such as a mechanical stroker for grinding out scratches. Always clean/grind outwards from the hole in the CD towards the periphery. Never wipe round and round like a record player. Ordinary detergent and water can be used provided that one is watchful and careful that the liquid does not etch the surface.
Ordinary spit and toothpaste can be used to rub out scratches on a CD - otherwise use a very fine grinding agent such as Caesium Oxide.
Do not leave CDs in places where they can be subjected to excessive heat car dashboards, or in sunlight for too long (this bleaches the sensitive dyes). Do not flex or bend CDs, or wrap them in Foodwrap or store between sheets of newspaper. CDs are definitely not the rugged things manufacturers make them out to be.
The "Gold" CDs are the best (from many people's experiences), followed by the blue and then all the others. Thus, with Kodak Gold (and now thei Silver) you should achieve perfect results. Even so, some types of discs still seem to be incompatible with some types of burners. Test before a bulk buy.
Dust affects CDs so make sure your CD trays) are wiped clean every now and then with a suitable moist cloth. The new (blank) CDs should be perfectly clean and dust free, ie. keep them sealed until required. If you have trouble reading a CD, especially home-produced ones try dropping the speed of the CD Reader. Drop it to the lowest setting and you'll find that even scratched discs can be read.
Before burning, optimise the CD Reader/Writer. Using windows 98, right click on My Computer and the select properties. The System Properties dialogue box appears. Click on the Hardware Device tab then highlight CD-ROM and click on properties. A dialogue box appears. Go to Settings and remove or turn off the "auto insert" radio button. You don't want a CD to "auto launch" itself into setup mode while you are trying to copy it. Next, set the CD speed: open the System Properties dialog box. Click the Performance tab. Click File System then click the tab for CD-ROM to change the settings. Set "supplemental cache" to LARGE and set the speed to quad or faster. Note, you can also open the System Properties dialog box by clicking Start, pointing to Settings, clicking Control Panel and then double-clicking System.
A CD will hold approximately 650 MB of information and during copying this amount of hard drive space is often used. Thus, ensure that you have a drive or partition devoted to your burner and set aside about 800 MB for it. It is possible to copy CDs by transferring the data that is being read into a cache or reservoir and simultaneously siphoning off from that cache to burn into a CD. If the Reader is slower than the Writer the cache empties and a dud/frisbee results. It's better to avoid this method. The safest way of copying is to first copy the prized CD on to your hard drive and then burn from the hard drive (Image). For example, on this computer there is a directory named D:\burncopy on an otherwise empty 1 GB drive D: Everything gets copied to and then burned from D:\burncopy.
We are nearly there. Now the computer is correctly set up and adjusted, a CD can be copied or created.
Copy a CD
Start the Easy CD Creator program by selecting "CD copier". Make sure you have inserted a blank CD in the burner and the CD to be copied is placed into the CD-Reader. A dialogue box opens and shows detection in progress. The dialogue box can now be used - one can fill in the answers to the queries presented. Thus, on the tab Source & Destination, click on Copy Now (no need for a check or test); number of copies enter 1. Click on the other tab (Advanced) and click Copy Source to Hard Drive First Drive and designate this as (for example) D:\burncopy. Set Current Recorder Speed at 4X write - or whatever is the best performance for your unit then click OK.
The program now copies all directories/files from the CD in the CDReader to the hard drive (the program dialogue box announces it is READING block x of y in the CD Creation process). Next it begins the Recording Phase (announces it is now WRITING Block x of y in the CD Creation process). The progress is shown throughout by a progress bar. At the end a Table of Contents (TOC) is written after which a warning is displayed, the burner tray opens and a dialogue box announces CD Successfully Created.
Remove the CD and label it using a soft, felt-tip pen. Do not write over the gold lacquer onto the inner hole or scratch off the lacquer. Remove the original CD you have copied and then close the program (do not save anything).
Copy a CD Using Only a Burner/Writer
Use the same procedure as above except this time you place the CD to be copied into the Burner/Writer and click on Copy CD -you may have to use the drop down tab in the dialogue box to tell the program that the original source and the destination are the Burner/ Writer CD. Then proceed as above and when the program is ready to Write it will ask you to insert a blank CD. This method (using ONLY the Burner/ Writer) is good when the original CD needs a slow read or is scratched.
Create a Data CD
To make a Data CD - or to copy "difficult" CDs as Data CDs - make sure that everything you want on the final CD has been previously copied into your D:\burncopy directory. The maximum is still 650 MB whether compressed as Zip files or not. It is possible to fit much more on a CD if the files are Zipped.
Place a blank CD in the Writer/Burner.
Open the Easy CD Creator program and choose Create CD. A wizard opens and steps you through the process. Choose Data CD instead of audio CD. A dialogue box opens and you are invited to Add whatever data you wish and from whatever source. For example, open the directory D:\burncopy by double clicking then highlight all the data in that directory. Click Add Now. In the lower pane of the dialogue box you will see the addition in progress. Then in the wizard's Test Before Writing? - click Do Not Perform The Test. Then in the Ready to create CD as the next step, click Create CD NOW The highlighted Data is written to the blank CD and a progress bar shows progress. The TOC is written and a finished CD is presented.
You may have directory/file names, which are too long for the program to process and these MUST be shortened for copying. For example one may have included a Web page with the title "Ramifications concerning the evolution of type O stars in the h-alpha distributions seen in Wolf-Rayett binaries of the Lesser Magellannic cloud fields.htm". It's better to rename that file to something much shorter at the time of the download.
There is much more, especially regarding the burning of audio tracks, but this is for a future article.
Reprinted from the October 2000 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
