Cd Burning Directions: XP

Copying Data to a CD using XP

Description: Windows XP allows you to 'burn' data to a CD, if you have a CD-RW drive in the computer. At this writing, there is at least one computer in each building that has this type of drive and they are normally in your library. You will have to use that specific computer for these directions. Ask your librarian or tech resource person which one it is.

You will need a blank CD. Blank CD's can be bought at many stores, i.e. Target, Walmart, CompUSA, Office Max, etc. Perhaps your librarian has some you can purchase. There are two types of CD's: CD-R's and CD-RW's. CD-R's can only be burned once, whereas CD-RW's can be burned multiple times. However, CD-RW's can not be read on ALL computer and audio machines. So, if you're a rookie at this process, your best bet for now is to get CD-R's.

It's important to note that once you've burned the new CD, test it out to make sure it works.

Click on this icon for movies

Please read all directions carefully

Mistakes? We can't fix them if you don't let us know.

Put the blank CD in the CD-RW drive and close. Shortly, a dialog box will appear. Make sure the Open Writable CD folder using Windows Explorer is selected, then press

You should now see a dialog box with

Click on the toolbar and you should see:

If you want to 'burn' your entire home directory onto the CD, and have enough space, skip this step and go on to step 4. If you want to 'burn' just select files and folders, follow this step and then skip step 4.

In the left pane, click your home directory (S:drive). Notice that the contents are now displayed in the right pane. To copy folders and/or files over to the D: drive, click, hold, and drag the file from the right pane to the top of the CD drive icon on the left. When the drive has emboldened, release the mouse button.

Keep doing this until all files and folders you want to 'burn' have been transferred. Note that you might see a popup in the lower right corner of your screen that tells you that there are files ready to be burned to the CD.

To burn your entire home directory onto the CD click on My Computer in the right pane. Click, hold and drag your directory over to the top of the CD drive until it emboldens and then release the mouse button. (See movie above)

If your home directory is too large to fit, you will get an error dialog box saying so. If this is the case, use step 3 above to transfer over enough files to fill a CD. Then, follow the process again to burn the rest of your files/folders.