Help! copying photos to disk

[PoohJen]

:badpc: Hi Everyone!
I rarely copy pics to disk; every time it seems like I have to figure out my computer all over again.

I am trying to copy a set of pics to disk; 87 to be exact. There should be enough room on the disk, a Memorex CD-R. New disc; in fact, I have a whole pile of 'em.

The putr keeps saying "no disc in drive"; it's not reading the disk (I've tried several new discs, in case one was a dud).

Any suggestions?:confused3

Thanks!:thumbsup2

[ukcatfan]

What software are you using, and is it reading normal disks? It sort of sounds like a hardware problem.

Kevin

[PoohJen]

Yes, I think it is a hardware problem.

It is just whatever cd-picture-burning software comes with the computer (dell/windows xp).

when viewing "My Pictures', you can select some and click "copy to cd", it then stores them on a clipboard, I guess. Funny thing is, I can't find this "software" anywhere in my menus; instead, i have to click a pic and say "copy to cd" to get a balloon that says something like "you have pictures/files waiting to be copied to disc; click this balloon".

Hmm, perhaps a quick software recommendation/fix?:confused3

[ukcatfan]

That is the Windows built in burning software and it is horrible. On my work pc, it is all I have and it does not work half of the time. See if your pc came with an actual program to do burning.

Kevin

[manning]

I think Dell was packaging light versions of Sonic Solutions which may now be Easy Creator. Sonic bought them out.

Check to see if you have these icons.

[Groucho]

Dell has gone through a few different bundles, it was Sonic RecordNow for a while, I believe it's currently a newer Sonic product. Still very basic but way better than the execrable mess that Microsoft built in to XP. IIRC, it even supports verify after burning, which I highly recommend.

My favorite burning software is Nero, which you can sometimes find a good deal on in the "Suite" version, which includes a ton of other apps, like DVD-video authoring (including slideshows), media player, audio recording and cleanup, backup tools, and a bunch of other stuff. There is a free trial on their site.

A couple other tips... "disk" is a floppy disk or a hard disk, "disc" is a CD or DVD (or BluRay, HD-DVD, etc).
If you're just burning a little, make sure to burn in multisession mode, this will allow you to add more content to the disk later.

[PoohJen]

Thanks for the insights and recommendations; glad to know it's not "me". and yup, Groucho, I realized I was mispelling disc every time I typed it; brain wasn't shifting gears fast enough. ok, i was lazy. ;)

Easy Creator sounds familiar; I'll look for it when I get home. My computer is 4 or 5 years old now; I'd better start uploading to the 'net and/or burning all my picture files before catastrophe occurs!

[Dznefreek]

Sometimes it helps if you uninstall/re-install the device:
Start>Control Panel>system>hardware>Device Manager
Expand CD/DVD Rom Drive
Choose your drive; right click choose uninstall, Press enter
Go to top of page>Action>Scan for hardware changes, to reinstall

This can be tricky but it has worked for me in the past.

[Evad]

Nero is another good burning porgram as well. Works great for me. :thumbsup2

It allows you to make slideshows complete with music as well. This is what I did with our pics from our last WDW trip. Mind you I burned it on a DVD disc. Not sure if you have a DVD burner. It does make it more enjoyable to watch then just looking at one pic after another.

[Master Mason]

If you're just burning a little, make sure to burn in multisession mode, this will allow you to add more content to the disk later.

I have never had success with doing it this way, seems like it never wants to accept it again for me, also, you can't take it to different computers until it is "closed". Since disks are so cheap now, I personally wouldn't advise this, just burn the disk compleately and if you have new stuff burn a new disk, that way what you get is usable for sure.

[WebmasterCricket]

Right click on the burner drive in Windows Explorer then click properties. Make sure "Enable CD recording on this drive" is checked under the recording tab.

I've burned hundreds of discs on over 50+ PC's & servers and this is the #1 problem by far. It's rarely a hardware issue. The Windows software works just fine in every case I have used it.

[mabas9395]

Have you checked that the CD drive can read discs? If you can't write, its probably software. If you can't write or read, it may be hardware.

[SharonLowe]

Have you checked which types of CDs your drive can record to? Not all of them can use CD-R; some need CD+R. Just a thought since it doesn't recognize any of your CDs.

[Groucho]

I have never had success with doing it this way, seems like it never wants to accept it again for me, also, you can't take it to different computers until it is "closed". Since disks are so cheap now, I personally wouldn't advise this, just burn the disk compleately and if you have new stuff burn a new disk, that way what you get is usable for sure.
I've never had a problem. The only time you need to close a multisession if is you're burning an audio CD, an old-fashioned audio CD player won't play it unless it's closed. PCs should have no problem reading multisession discs. I've had no problem importing old sessions either, with Nero or way back when, when I used Easy CD Creator. There should be no question about reliability, you're still burning the same way, just creating a new Table of Contents each time.

This is different than UDF-formatted discs, like those created by InCD or DirectCD, where a CD-RW behaves just like a giant floppy disk.