Your guide to burning perfect CD-RWs.

The concept of writing data to brand-new CD-RW discs is just like writing data to a new floppy disk: You insert the media into the drive, format it, and then drag and drop data to the drive for storage. The main difference between CD-RW media and floppy disks is that you need a special program to help you format the media before you can store data on and read from the disc.

Writing to a CD-RW

The type of program required for writing to CD-RWs is called a UDF packet writer. Whenever you buy a new CD-RW drive it should come with a burning suite like Roxio's Easy CD Creator or Nero's Burning ROM. There are other burning suites out there, but these are the main two. Both companies bundle a UDF packet-writing program with their products. For Easy CD Creator this program is called DirectCD and for Nero it's called InCD.

DirectCD and InCD work similarly. When you pop an unformatted CD-RW disc in the drive you must format it before being able to write to it. If you don't know how to format a CD-RW disc, take a look at the program's help file for directions. DirectCD has big button labeled "Format," which launches a wizard that takes you through the process. Once the disc is formatted it will be able to store data.

Storing data on a CD-RW can be done in a number of ways. You should be able to drag and drop files from Windows Explorer, select "Save As" from the file menu in any Window application, right-click any file, and use the SendTo command, or use MS-DOS command prompts from a DOS window in Windows. To delete data from a CD-RW disc just launch Windows Explorer, open the CD-RW drive, select the files you want to delete, and then hit the delete key. DirectCD even has a feature that will allow you to retrieve deleted files from a CD-RW if the data hasn't been overwritten.

Reading from a CD-RW

In order to read CD-RW discs using a CD-RW drive you need to have the program that wrote the data installed on your system. You can also download a universal UDF reader that will allow you to read CD-RW discs in a MultiRead-compatible CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
Follow these links to download either Roxio's UDF Reader or Nero's Free InCD UDF Reader.

Advantages of CD-RW drives

The biggest advantage to storing data on a CD-RW vs. CD-R is the process in which it writes to the disc. Anyone familiar with burning CD-Rs is probably well aware of buffer underrun errors and how they contribute to CD-Rs becoming drink coasters. A buffer underrun occurs when your computer isn't able to supply data quickly enough to the CD writer for it to record the data in one continuous stream.

Writing to a CD-RW eliminates this problem, because data is written onto the disc in small packets. While CD-Rs cost much less in the short term, you may end up saving more money on CD-RWs in the long run if you have continual problems with buffer underrun errors while burning CD-Rs.

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