problems copying to cds

[royston]

I have recently been copying files to cds as backups.
However, I find that if I try to copy more then a few they seem to diasppear (?)
There is then nothing shown on the disc. , despite there previously having been some files,and a message that a that says drag items.
Any ideas please.
Roy
ps if I limit the files to a few it works well, but is a real pain

[Guest]

You don't mention how you are copying the files - just drag & drop and then burn or using Nero or other specialist software. I always use the latter.

Secondly, are you writing to the CD once or multiple times? If you are using CD-R rather than CD-RW and writing a number of times then that would corrupt the CD.

Graham

[browntoa]

this is a free bit of software I use

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

more here

http://www.imgburn.com/

little calculator works out how much space you have left on the CD

[Mary Young]

I would copy many items and they would show as being there on the desktop, but when I put the disc into the laptop they seemed to disappear.

I assume you mean, writing to a CD on your desktop PC, and failing to read them on your laptop?
This is probably because CDs left "open" can only be read by the computer that writes them. You need to "close the session" or "finalise the disk" (I forger the wording in Roxio).

[MarkJ]

I agree with Mary regarding the finalising of the disk. In many cases, a disk written on one drive but not finalised, cannot be read by another (different make) drive.

When they first came out, some drives - even if a disk was finalised - refused to read certain disks, but that would be unlikely now.

Mark

[gibo]

If you copy files to a disk that already has some on it - it could be that they have been overwritten. If the disk was not finalised it may appear that you can add to it again but if it it is not a re-writtable disk - you wont be able to add to it as easily. It really depends if the disk was finalised and you tried to add stuff to it.

It can be confusing I guess but mostly a normal disk should be finalised even if it is not full.
This would mean the original files stay accessible for later use.

[David Benson]

I read an article in a technical magazine which gave figures as to the readability of CD disks. Shop bought CD's had a figure of between 50 - 80% reflection of the laser beam. Write once types were 25 - 60% and Re-writable disks were very poor at 15 - 30%. This means that any loss of reading ability in the computer could corrupt the data, or not even read it at all, more so with re-writable disks.
I always use write once types and back up my data once a week. Finalise the disks, write the date on it and at worst I'll only loose a weeks worth of changes.
Blank disks are so cheap to buy - I get a bulk pack of 100 and they last 2 years. You can store them back in the bulk pack.

[Barbara Wilkinson]

If you are having such problems and just want backups of your data, what about using memory sticks - or pen drives? I have lots of those around as backups - and backups of backups, because I lost a load of data some years ago! They are getting very reasonable to buy, even for large capacity storage.

[Guy Etchells]

As mentioned the problem is possibly with not finalising the disk.

However there seems to be some confusion as to what can be done with a CD-R disk.
With this type of cd one can write either in a single session or in multiple sessions as many times as one likes until the disk becomes full. Once it is full no more data can be added.
All the data on the disk will be readable but only if the multiple write option has been selected.
If the multiple write option is not selected the writing software will disregard any data on the cd and write a new index track which only allows access to the new data.

With a re-writable CD the disk may be re-formated and used again and again in a similar way to a floppy disk.
Cheers
Guy

[royston]

Thanks to everyone for the advice.
I have purchased some rewriteable discs and will give this a go.
Also considering getting an external hard drive for backup purposes.

Roy