No one else can read the CDs I burn.

[mcbiff]

None of my friends can read the CDs I create with Nero, what could be causing this? I don't use any strange settings that I'm aware of and the CDs work fine on my computer.

 

[MichaelD]

I"m not familar w/Nero, but I'd imagine it's similar to EZ CD Creator in it's operation. In EZ CD, first you open up the program and format a blank CDR/CDRW. Then you burn whatever onto it. Then (this is the step i think you are omitting) you go back into the program to close the CD. It gives you two options:

1. Leave CD as-is so you can write to it in the future
2. Make the CD readable in any CD Rom drive.

If you are going to try to read that CD on any computer other than yours, you need to make it readable. There is an option in there somewhere...there has to be.

You'll notice that if you have say, 100mb on a CD, there should be about 500 or so MB's left, right? Right. But if you "close" the CD to make it readable in any CDrom, that file mangler will show the CD as "full" i.e. 100mb/100mb instead of 100mb/600mb. Good luck.

 

[mcbiff]

Thanks for the suggestion, but a quick check revealed that my CDs are all finalized. Any other ideas?

 

[LostHiWay]

It might just be the media your using. Try a different brand.

 

[jmc]

Why would you format the cd/cdrw? That would not be a good idea. You only format it when you use it like a drive or Zip disk. This will not be seen buy another machine unless they install the softwear to read that.

As far as the other guys problem. Make sure you are using the Joliet for burning. This is standard for win9x long file names. Anyway thats where I believe the problem is. The format your using to burn. Thats my guess anyway.

 

[grant2]

i bet it's the burner.

1/2 the discs from my friend's HP can't be read on other drives.

but leaving the session open vs. closing it isn't going to make it unreadable most other drives.

 

[MichaelD]

Grant2,

I've gotta disagree w/you on that. Any CD's I burn on my Imation 12x burner cannot be read in either my work PC (Dell) or my GF's PC (built by me...Cen-Dyne CDR) unless I close the session. During the "closing" part, the burning software even displays the message "making CDRom readable by other drives."

 

[NelsonMuntz]

MichaelD, what's up, buddy? I think there might be something up with that EZ CD that is different than Nero. I have been burning CDs for a long time with the two burners I own with two different software, and I often don't close the session because then I can go back in (with the same software) and add to the CD. You have to create a multisession the first time and continue a multisession on the concurrent times. These disks are always readable by any CD-ROM that I have had the chance to put them in (probably about 15 CD-ROMs in total that I have tested out). The deal is you would never want to do this with audio CDs because in order for a stand alone home or car CD player to read the audio tracks, it should have a closed session. I did this once with an audio CD and after adding to the open session the stand alone CD player either couldn't read the new stuff or it played garbage depending on the quality of the CD player. Those are just my experiences, so I don't want to try to apply that to everyone else. I think either he is not using the Joliet format or his burner is working properly (probably the latter would be my guess). Try to install the latest firmware and such and maybe you could get it back again. Does it do this with other software as well, or just Nero?

 

[corkyg]

Burned 100s of CDRs over the past 5 years and NEVER formatted anything. That is strictly for Direct CD only, a somewhat flakey Adaptec/Roxio separate program.

Nero is good . . . and so is ECDC 5.01. Each has advantages and disadvantages. But, they both cannot be installed on the same machine without real problems.

The key to good universal results is to burn the CDR or RW and CLOSE it . . . if it is not closed . . . no other system can read it. For best results, collect all your data in a cache on your HDD, then use DISK AT ONCE.

 

[grant2]

I've gotta disagree w/you on that. Any CD's I burn on my Imation 12x burner cannot be read in either my work PC (Dell) or my GF's PC (built by me...Cen-Dyne CDR) unless I close the session. During the "closing" part, the burning software even displays the message "making CDRom readable by other drives."

I guess we are using different software.. I've always used EZcd creator, and it defaults to leaving the session "open" ... aside from the HP burner, they all read fine in all cd roms.

Also i've never seen a message "making cdrom readable by other drives" .... sounds like a euphamism for writing the TOC or something...

 

[grant2]

btw i my be mixing up "open session" with "multisession" ... the latter is what i think EZ cd defaults to...

As for audio cds, I go with closed-session-burn-at-once type of thing =)