Non FF computer ?

[Rick Z]

How can you set up a computer to fomrat CD''s so they are not read only.

Thanks for any help.

Rick

[brhoff]

Sounds like you need to replace your CDROM drive with a CDRW (read write) drive...no worries, they are about 20 bucks these days.

[Joe Valencic]

My techno-geek son is at the Consumer Electronics show in Vegas right now, but in his absence I seem to recall that you must buy re-writable CD's. Ordinary CD's can only be written to one time. Are you making CD's to give to people or are you using them to archive things from your computer? If you are achiving (back up) why not just buy an external 300GB hard drive witha case with cables for around $100, and even less if you require less storage. Check www.newegg.com for pricing. My son buys from them, so the prices must be good.

[Kerry Stratton]

First you need a DVD or CD R/W drive. R/W stands for read/write. Next you will need to purchase CDs that are R/W.

[MikieFinn]

I am an IT guy and I will tell you it's not worth it at all. With the cost of regular blank CD it makes no sense to even use rewritable. Buying CDs in bulk by a hundred they come out to about 20c and at that time they do become totaly disposable. Erasing and rewriting optical media take F O R E V E R... and after three or four uses becomes totaly unreliable.

The best bet is to install on the new DVD/CD drives around $50.00 and just use regular blank CDs. If you have larger chunk of data then buy a few blank DVD's and use them.

Oh and by the way. You do not need to fill the disk up at one time. You can keep adding files as you need as long as you have disk space left...

[Rick Z]

I have a rewrite f drive and sisks. When I save a document and try it on another computer I am told the file is read only and cannot be changed unless I save it with a new name.
How do I get rid of that.


Rick

[ducksterman]

I'm wondering if what you need to do is "finalize" the discs...it allows the discs to be played on equipment besides the equipment that created them.
Once finalized that disc can no longer be recorded upon.

[MikieFinn]

I have a rewrite f drive and sisks. When I save a document and try it on another computer I am told the file is read only and cannot be changed unless I save it with a new name.
How do I get rid of that.


Rick

It depends on the software that writes\rewrites the disk this may not be possible at all without ereasing the whole disk. If you need a media that you can use at will on different computer then I strongly recommend you start using USB flash drive. You car write rewrite to your hearts content and all the computers manufactured after 1998 have USB port.

Optical media was never intended to be used in such way.

[MontanaMoose]

Yep, once I broke down and bought a flash drive,
my world got a whole lot simpler and
I can carry more information on my key
chain then I could have imagined. Mine is
just a little 2 gig I got for 14.95 I think it
was...yeah, I know...4's don't run much more
now. Also the capacity keeps getting bigger
and bigger...I've heard of tera flash drives
but haven't seen one.

Oh and don't be fooled if you see flash drives
that offer bells and whistles such as pretty
holders, protective covers that push them up
to 30.00...you don't need that. Just the base
flash drive will set you free from CD's. DVD's
still have their place though. Ok, the experts
will sort out any of this if I'm wrong, which
happens... ! !

Cheers,

MontanaMoose

[tigfly]

It depends on the software that writes\rewrites the disk this may not be possible at all without ereasing the whole disk. If you need a media that you can use at will on different computer then I strongly recommend you start using USB flash drive. You car write rewrite to your hearts content and all the computers manufactured after 1998 have USB port.

Optical media was never intended to be used in such way.

Do you know if it is possible to make an audio CD to play in my car CD from downloading a podcast? I have tried and the podcasts are a few minutes over the 80 minute limit of CD's. Are there CD's with a larger capacity than 800MB?

Glenn