Trying to burn photos to CD's...need help understanding CD-RW's!!

[Jeanne B]

I have all of our vacation photos on my laptop and I'm finally trying to get them on CD's but apparently I need an explanation of how CD-RW's work.

I burned one vacation "album" from my Kodak EasyShare software to the CD and then I burned a second album to the same CD. Well when I put the CD in our DVD player to make sure it worked all of the pictures were there but when I put it back in my cd-rom drive on my laptop only the first album was there...why would all the pictures display when in the DVD player but only the first album when I put the CD in my laptop? I decided to try again and selected ALL of our vacation pictures at once (should have done that in the first place I guess) and burned them again to the same cd (plus I had to put a second CD in). Well all the pictures are there now when I open it on my laptop but I've got a whole bunch of pictures that are duplicates - the second pictures all of an underscore 1 after them. What's odd is that I'm certain many of the duplicate pictures I didn't burn the first time around. I have duplicate pictures in my EasyShare albums but when I selected which ones to burn I only selected one of each.

Is there a way to start from scratch? Can I delete all the pictures that I now have on this CD-RW and start over? If so, how? And apparently when I burn photos to a CD-RW and it doesn't completely fill the CD, the next time I burn more photos to this same CD it just adds them and doesn't write over the pictures already stored on the CD? Sort of like a VHS tape? I was thinking that's more how a CD-R works but I guess I don't understand how the rewritable feature works on the CD-RW's.

I'm sure this is a simple process so forgive my ignorance!!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

There are several ways of burning CD:

1. Multi Sessions (then you have the option to "Finalize" the CD or not)
2. Single Session (automatically finalized as part of the CD standard)

For best compatibility, choose "Single Session" (or "No Multisession", the term used by Nero) then "Finalize" the CD.

From what you've described, you're burning using multi-session and your laptop can only read the first session. Try finalizing the CD (and most probably the laptop will be able to read the multiple sessions) or if not, just erase the entire disc, start from scratch and just burn everything at once (it's also called "disc-at-once" recording).

If you need Nero Premiere 7, PM me, DH knows one of the developers of the program.

 

[Jeanne B]

When I burn the CD from my Kodak EasyShare software it doesn't ask me anything about single or multi-session. It also doesn't bring up anything about finalizing. I went to My Computer and opened my d: drive and when I try to delete pictures it tells me they're read-only files and it won't delete them - it then comes up with a message "you can add files to this writable CD which will replace files already on the disc".

I'm starting to wonder if I should be using something other than my Easyshare software for doing this? And should I be using CD-R's instead of CD-RW's?

 

[Kelly Grannell]

there is something strange going on with that software. As a self professed Kodak hater, I strongly recommend you to use other CD burning program. It doesn't have to be Nero but anything but Kodak.

CDR or CDRW should not matter.

 

[Jeanne B]

Maybe I'll try my Canon software - I got the A610 a couple of weeks ago and I installed the software that came with it but I haven't tried using it yet.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I don't recall Canon software comes with CD burning capability.

 

[safetymom]

Do you have Windows XP? You can drag files over to the cd and you will be able to see them all when you look at the cd after burning.

 

[Jeanne B]

Kelly - I haven't tried it yet but my Canon came with ZoomBrowser EX software and in it there's an "Export Still Images" option.

edited - I think I have that wrong, it's has a "back up to cd" option. I'm playing around with it right now.

safetymom - yes, I do have XP and I talked to my mother before seeing your response and she does what you suggested. I tried it but I'm getting a message that access is denied and to make sure the disk isn't full or write protected (even though I'm using an RW cd) Maybe I'm not doing it right? In spite of using one every day at work it's times like this when I realize there's still so much I don't know about computers!!

 

[safetymom]

When saving your images you shouldn't be using read write CD's. You should just be using CD-R. The RW are too easy to erase.

When you insert a blank cd you should be offered the choice to make a writable cd with XP. Then just do a copy to folder of your images to the drive which is your cd.

 

[Cyrano]

Hope you get this sorted

 

[Jeanne B]

When saving your images you shouldn't be using read write CD's. You should just be using CD-R. The RW are too easy to erase.

When you insert a blank cd you should be offered the choice to make a writable cd with XP. Then just do a copy to folder of your images to the drive which is your cd.

I had a few CD-RW's on hand so I decided to try those first but I'll definitely pick up CD-R's. I just moved a batch of pictures onto a cd using the Canon software and that worked fine...at last!! I'm done messing with my photos for tonight but I'll put in a blank cd tomorrow and see if I can just copy folders to the cd drive with XP.

Thanks for the input everyone and I'm probably making this much more difficult than it really is!!

 

[geetey]

Kelly, what features are available on Nero? Can you design your own CD labels or is it stricly for burning to a cd?

 

[Kelly Grannell]

for full feature list, kindly visit http://www.nero.com OVer there it's called Nero Ultra 7, the same thing is being released internationally (excpet US and Canada) under the name Nero Premiere 7.

It has media player, label and cover designer, recode (shrinking DVD9 into DVD5) and much-much more.