How to make a CD-RW truly drag-and-drop?

[ThatWasFat]

All my dad wants to do is drag and drop his quicken files to the CD icon, have it backup, and be done with it.

ButI know NOTHING of CD-RW stuff. I looked up Mt. Rainier but it said windows doesnt support it, etc, yadda yadda. How can I go about making a real drag-and-drop CD for my dad.


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[Matthias99]

Most CD-RW drives come with utilities that will let you format a disc as a "DirectCD" disk -- this lets you treat it like a big floppy drive as far as Windows is concerned. Win98 should support this; I'm not sure about 95. I know NT/2k/XP does.

WinXP has some functionality built in for drag-and-drop CD burning, but I haven't really messed around with it.

 

[fredtam]

If you open the cdrw from my computer then drag and drop the files there all you have to do is click burn these files to a disc. Thats as close as you will get to drag and drop right now.

 

[egale]

I assume you want to use the cd-rw as you would a floppy drive. This can be done with packet writing software like InCD which comes with Nero or DirectCD which comes with EasyCD.

There are 2 major issues with this though. First the CD which you create can only be read on computers which have the same software. And second, packet writing software is extremely unreliable. I can give you a 100% guarantee that at some point, a CD-RW that you created and have been using will suddenly become unreadable for no apparant reason. You will have data loss. I as well as many others have given up on this software after having problems like that.

You are much better off creating a new cd each time you want to backup. You can use a cd-rw and erase and write over each time but if you try using it like the floppy, eventually you will have problems.

 

[fredtam]

Or you can create a shortcut to the ddrw on the desktop. Then you can drag and drop the files on to it. When you open the shortcut "write files to cd" will be on the left.

 

[arsbanned]

I'd use the built in functionality XP has. Drag the files onto the drive and click "copy files to disk"
I've always had problems with the packet writing softwares. Running an addidtional program in the background takes up more resources too.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: arsbanned
I'd use the built in functionality XP has. Drag the files onto the drive and click "copy files to disk"

I agree... It works flawlessly for me and my family.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

I've never had a problem with the built in XP burning software (Roxio), but I still much prefer nero over it.

 

[arsbanned]

But Nero doesn't provide what the original poster is looking for (without packet writing software)
I use Nero too. Just not for what the original poster is inquiring after.
Or did I miss something.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: arsbanned
But Nero doesn't provide what the original poster is looking for (without packet writing software)
I use Nero too. Just not for what the original poster is inquiring after.
Or did I miss something.

You missed something. Nero comes with InCD, which does what DirectCD does.

 

[arsbanned]

What's DirectCD got to do with anything? If you use the Windows XP built in functionality there is NO software to install.
Hello?

Is this thing on?

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: arsbanned
What's DirectCD got to do with anything? If you use the Windows XP built in functionality there is NO software to install.
Hello?

Is this thing on?

He didn't mention if he was using XP or not

 

[Auric]

MS dropped the ball by rushing out XP sans CD-MRW support. It is queer that it has not been added in subsquent patches. Anyhoo, if you have a copy of Nero then InCD is included or can be downloaded at no extra cost. That will handle the packet writing but for maximum reliability it must be MRW formatted and requires a hardware compliant ROM drive to do so. Regardless, InCD will surreptitiously include the EasyWrite Reader driver on each disc so that it will be readable even on systems that do not have such software installed already. So, check if your dad's drive is EasyWrite/MRW/Mt. Rainier compliant. If not, a ROM update may be available (see rpc1.org) or in any case new drives are cheap.