How to burn files to disk. Methods for writing files to disk from a computer using standard tools and third-party programs

In this lesson we will learn how to transfer files and folders from a computer to empty disk. We will also talk about what types of discs there are and how they differ from each other.

In previous lessons we learned how to copy files and folders. Using copying, you can write files to your computer, to a flash drive, or copy them from your phone or camera. But not to disk. If we try to write something to an empty disk in this way, it will still remain empty.

To burn discs correctly you need to use special programs. The most famous of them is called Nero, but, unfortunately, it is paid. There are also free options- CDBurnerXP, BurnAware and others. They are no worse, but you need to find such a program on the Internet, download it to your computer, then install it correctly and learn how to use it.

All these movements make sense if the user often needs to write information to disks. But there is another, simpler way - without any programs.

The good thing about it is that it is universal. That is, in this way you can write files and folders with files to an empty disk without additional programs and settings on almost any computer.

Among the disadvantages, it should be noted that on computers with Windows XP, this method can only be written to a CD - not to a DVD.

What kind of discs are there?

Discs come in CDs and DVDs. Many people think that only films are recorded on DVDs, and everything else is recorded on CDs - music, documents, photographs. In fact, this is not true. They differ only in size.

On DVD disc fits four or even eight times more information than a CD. That is, if one film fits on a CD, and even then not very good quality, then you can burn four movies or even more onto a DVD disc. Music, photos, documents and other files and folders can be burned to either a CD or DVD.

Also discs come in R and RW. The difference between them is that information can be written to R only once, while information can be written to RW many times. We wrote it down, used it, and then erased it and wrote down something else.

Well, and, among other things, disks can be divided into “full” and “empty”. That is, those on which something has already been recorded (films, music, etc.) and those on which there is nothing.

Burning discs

First you need to find out what version of Windows is installed on your computer. To do this, open “Start”, right-click on “Computer” (My Computer) and in the list that opens, click on “Properties”.

A window will open in which it will be written which system is installed.

Burning discs in Windows XP

Select the files and folders you want to burn to a blank CD:

Open the disk on your computer. To do this, open “My Computer”:

Right click on empty space and click on “Insert”.

The files and folders you copied will be pasted onto the disk. But this does not mean that they signed up for it. To do this, you need to right-click on an empty space and select “Burn files to CD” from the list.

The “CD Burning Wizard” window will open. You can type a name for the disc in the CD Name field, but this is not necessary. Click the "Next" button and wait.

When the disc is written (the green bar fills and disappears), a new window will open in which you need to click the “Done” button.

Even if such a window does not appear, the disc is still recorded.

Most likely, he will move out of the computer on his own. Thus, the computer reports that the recording was successful and the disc can already be used.

How to clean up a disk in Windows XP

You can clean the disk only if it is reusable. To do this, it must have RW written on it. If the letter R is written on the disk, then it cannot be erased; it is disposable.

Insert the RW disk into the drive.

Open it on your computer. To do this, open “My Computer”:

And open the CD in it/ DVD discs od:

Then right-click on an empty space (on a white field) and select “Erase this CD-RW” from the list.

A new window will open. Click on the “Next” button and wait until all information is erased. When this happens, a "Done" button will appear. Click on it. That's it, the disk is clean and you can write something on it again.

Burning Windows 7 discs

Select the files and folders you want to burn to disk:

Copy them, that is, right-click on any of the selected files (folders) and in the list that appears, click on the “Copy” item.

Insert a blank disc into the drive.

Open "Computer" (Start - Computer).

Open the CD/DVD drive. To do this, click on it twice with the left mouse button.

A small window will appear. You need to select the type of disc you are going to burn. Two types are offered - “How USB flash drive" and "With a CD/DVD player."

The first option is more convenient and modern: you will get a disk very similar to a flash drive - you can write files and folders by normal copying, and erase them from it simple removal. But such disks may not open on some computers.

The second option - “With a CD/DVD player” - is classic, that is, the same as in Windows XP. It is suitable if you want to record music and plan to listen to it not only on the computer, but also on players (for example, in the car). This option is less convenient, but more reliable - a disc recorded in this mode will open on any computer.

Click on the type that suits you. Then click on the “Next” button.

If you have chosen Like a USB flash drive, a warning will appear indicating that you will have to wait until the disc is prepared for recording. By the way, sometimes you have to wait a long time - more than ten minutes. Click Yes.

When everything is ready, the window will disappear and a new small window will appear in which the computer will “offer” to open the folder to view files.

But even if such a window does not appear, it’s okay, just open “Computer” again and open “CD/DVD drive”.

An empty folder will open. Right-click on an empty space and click on "Paste".

After some time, the previously copied files and folders will be added. That's all, the disc recording was successful!

If you have chosen the type With CD/DVD player, then a blank disk will open. Right-click on an empty space and click on "Paste".

The files and folders you copied will be pasted onto the disk. But this does not mean that they have already signed up for it. In order for this to happen, you need to right-click on an empty space and select “Burn to disk” from the list.

A new window will appear. You can type in the name of the disc, but this is not necessary. Click the "Next" button.

Now we need to wait. When the disc is written (the green bar fills and disappears), a new window will open in which you need to click the “Done” button.

But even if such a window does not appear, the disc is still recorded.

Most likely, he will move forward on his own. Thus, the computer “tells” us that the recording was successful and the disc can already be used.

How to erase a Windows 7 disk

We can erase a disk only if it is reusable and called RW. If the letter R is written on it, then the disc is disposable and cannot be erased.

Insert the disc into the drive and open it on your computer (Start - Computer - CD/DVD drive).

Try deleting the file or folder. To do this, right-click on the file (folder). A list will open. See if it has a “Delete” option. If there is, then delete the information through this item.

And if there is no such inscription, then right-click on an empty space (white field) and select “Erase disk” (or an item with a similar name) from the list.

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In order to burn files to a DVD, you need to use additional burning programs. However, this applies primarily to Windows XP; later versions of Windows: Vista and 7 allow you to burn a removable disk without third-party software.

Despite the possibility of modern operating systems burn DVD-R, DVD-RW discs internal application, for expansion functionality and increase the visibility of operations, experts recommend installing specialized software.

For reference. There are two types of discs: DVD-R and DVD-RW. The former allow you to record once, while the latter make this process repeated. Information on DVD-RW can be rewritten or appended. All programs for burning DVDs have the “Burn” and “Erase” functions. The second one refers to the RW format. It is worth remembering that over time the disc deteriorates, so the price-quality ratio of the product is in this case plays an important role.

What programs burn DVD-R, DVD-RW discs

To date the most popular program for recording discs is Nero. This is one of the most user-friendly products that allows you to easily create DVDs.

Nero software package (note: Nero Express is needed for simple disc burning) is one of the most powerful and functional programs. Unfortunately for developers, when creating and editing various types of information, most users do not use some of Nero's functionality.

If you plan to use Nero, remember that it paid product. In addition, it consumes more system resources than built-in applications of operating systems.

Users who do not want to spend money and violate copyrights can get by with no less quality, but free products. For example, CDBurnerXP- simple and free program for recording optical disks, which is in no way inferior to Nero. It allows you to create a DVD with information, audio, video or an image with data.

CDBurnerXP does not exclude the possibility of copying discs, erasing recorded information from them, or adding to existing information.

Working with the programs is very simple. The entire sequence of operations is guided intuitively clear images and comments. You just need to first decide what type of information will be recorded, since the further algorithm of actions depends on this.

Almost all recording programs adhere to the same algorithm of actions. The difference lies in the deeper settings that regular user will be ignored.

Instructions for burning a DVD.

1. Insert a blank DVD-R or cleaned DVD-RW& disc into the drive.

2. Windows will autostart. In this case, click “Cancel”;

3. Launch the recording program and select the type of data to be recorded. It could be text files, photos, audio, video and much more.

4. Next, a functional window will open through which you need to add files to the future disk. Just search for what you need in Explorer, select it and add it to disk being created. At the bottom of the window there is an “Add” button. Most often it is accompanied by a symbolic green plus (note: you can also “drag” files and folders to the area of ​​the recordable disc). Remember that the disk has a limit on the amount of information it can hold; it is displayed with a special bar. Until it turns red, you can add files freely.

5. When the disk is configured, click the “Burn” button, most often it will look like a disk with a green check mark.

6. Wait for the recording to finish.

After the operation is completed, the disk will come out of the drive and information with the result of the work will be displayed on the screen.

Comments

Files important for work must be constantly backed up. On computers equipped with Windows, the required data is saved using operating system tools that allow them to be copied to CD/DVD/BD disks. To record , the computer must have a recording device, a program that controls this process, and, of course, a blank disk. Next steps are described below.

Necessity

Information in a computer is stored on a hard drive, also known as a hard drive. It is of limited volume. Although the capabilities of hard drives are constantly growing and are now measured in terabytes, the amount of stored data is also constantly increasing. This is due to the quality of the information. There always comes a time for the user to save existing data. Optical discs allow you to store them for a long time.

It is also impossible to deny the case when it is necessary to transfer data from a computer to someone. Unfortunately, situations occur when the Internet is unavailable, and a flash drive is too expensive a device to give away instead of a DVD or CD. Therefore, knowledge of how to use a recording device is simply necessary.

Disk types

An empty medium is called a blank. Let's look at the types of disks.

It is better to save programs and data on a CD-ROM, but it allows you to record more than 650 MB, which can then neither be erased nor added.

You can already create several sessions on a CD-R, but the volume is still small - 650 or 700 MB. In this case, the data is also not erased.

CD-RW – assumes multiple recording and erasing of unnecessary records, up to 650 MB.

DVD-ROM discs already allow you to write data with a total volume of 4.7 GB, but again once, you can only read it.

DVD- /+R – a multi-session recording is created, the disc size is equal to the previous one.

DVD-/+RW discs work like a flash drive, repeatedly writing and deleting files , their volume coincides with the previous one. They have earned popularity because of the cost.

A variety of types are seen in DVD-RAM, but they require the same player, the size varies from 2.6 - 9.4 GB.

Files totaling 8.5 gigabytes in size are written to DVD-/+RDL in several sessions, which greatly simplifies the process.

The largest BD size, they come in two variants: 25 GB and 50 GB, respectively. If they have indexes R and RDL, then they work in single-session recording mode, and with indexes RE and REDL in multi-session recording mode.

Recording methods

"Record..." function.

The system's response to the selection of this function.

System response.

Help information when asking for help from the system is shown in the figure.

Help window

The next step is to establish the media name and file system, is shown in the following figure. In LFS, files are recorded one at a time, so there is no need to reserve space on the computer; it is possible to edit and resave them, but this is not supported by players. The Mastered system allows music and video files to be read by players, but they need to be recorded in a group and require space on the hard drive.

Recording options

After the request to drag and drop the files with the mouse, copying is carried out.

Copy operation

The message about the remaining balance is very approximate. As copying progresses, the time is updated. In reality, the recording of these elements lasted 24 minutes instead of 17 hours.

Should I close the session?

Closing the current session

Erasing information

This operation is only possible for RW disks. To delete information, you must use the right mouse button. This operation will destroy all files located on the disk, click the “Next” button and wait for it to complete.

This is a fairly old problem that appeared along with CDs and then DVDs. Previously, in Windows, you had to install third-party programs to write files to disk. For example, Nero or similar ones, which made it possible to burn discs much more conveniently than the built-in Windows tools.

Installing additional programs is always a problem for most users, so the question " how to burn files to disk without installing additional programs"still remains relevant. However, in new Windows versions there are very convenient way burn discs without any additional programs. Now I will show how this is done using Windows 8 as an example.

You can write files to the disk just like to a flash drive

That's exactly what it is. Moreover, you can not only delete them, but also delete them, as you do on a hard drive or Flash card. To take advantage of this benefit, you must first format the recordable disc.

Formatting is the partitioning of a disk, that is special procedure, necessary before you write files to disk. There is nothing complicated here, it takes little time and is done only once for each disk. To format a disk prepared for writing files, you need to open Explorer (My Computer or WIN+E) or any other file manager and find this disk there. There is no need to go to the disk.

Above is Explorer and a list of drives in the My Computer folder. Call up menu right click for a disk drive that already inserted a disk for recording files, then click “Format”.

Attention: don't go wrong with the disc!

If you accidentally format the wrong drive, you will lose all the data on it!

Just in case, double-check that you have selected the right disk. The drive letter is indicated in the window title. You can leave the window parameters as they are and click the “Start” button, and the system will once again ask for confirmation of the operation. If the drive is selected correctly, click OK.

Here comes another warning. If you click "Yes", the disk formatting process will begin.

This type of operation cannot be interrupted, including by forcefully ejecting the disk using a button on the drive. This may render the disc unusable! Be sure to wait until the formatting process is complete.

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Video tutorial on burning discs using Windows

For a long time now, you can stop installing special programs for burning CDs and DVDs on your computer. All these operations can be performed using tools built into the operating system. All you need is an appropriate writeable drive.

Let's sum it up

Before you can use a CD or DVD like a flash drive, you must format it appropriately. Next, copying files to the disk is done in the same way as for any other disk.

Despite the fact that transporting and transferring files from computer to computer is usually done via a network or using flash drives, optical disks are still quite common today and are in the arsenal of many users. They serve as a spare boot disk, for storing various databases (photos, audio, video, etc.), for listening to music, and other useful tasks. At the same time, recording such discs has certain specifics that directly depend on the future use of such a disc and the type of OS used by the user. In this material I will tell you how to write files to disk, what tools will help us with this, and what are the features of recording depending on the operating system the user is using.

There are several pretty famous programs that allow you to write files to optical disk(usually these are varieties of CD-R(RW), DVD-R(RW), Blu-ray discs). For example, these are well-known to many “Nero”, “Roxio”, “Ashampoo” Burning Studio", "Power2Go" and other analogues. At the same time, the built-in tools of the Windows OS, in particular “ File Explorer" And " Windows Explorer» (« Windows Explorer") also has excellent capabilities for burning CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Below I will show how to use their functionality in operating rooms Windows systems 7, 8, and 10.

How to burn CD files from a computer to a disc

As is known, standard size A CD (an abbreviation for “Compact Disk”) is a standard 700 megabytes (although there are CDs in sizes of 140, 210, and 800 megabytes). To record a standard CD, take an empty “blank” of such a “CD-R” disc (designed for one-time recording on the disc, although there are options for “adding” files to such a disc to existing ones).

Insert such a disc into an optical CD or DVD drive, which has a recording function. The system will quickly recognize an empty disk and ask you what to do with this disk. Usually versions given choice V different versions The operating systems differ only visually, but in essence they are similar.

Here's what it looks like in Windows 10:

Here's what it looks like in Windows 7:

Here's what it looks like in Windows 8.1:

If for some reason you have the Auto-play function disabled, then you will need to open Explorer and double-click on the optical drive icon in the list of disks available on your PC.

In the Autorun menu that appears, select Burn files to disc. Next, a menu usually appears offering a choice of two options for using the disk:

• Like a flash drive. This option allows you to burn a disc in the “Live” file system, which allows you to add or delete files as you would when working with a regular flash drive. This format usually used only with rewritable discs (RW discs), but since in this section we are considering a regular CD-R disc, this item does not suit us. At the same time, discs written “as a flash drive” can only work with computers based on Windows OS (such discs are not supported on other devices).
• With CD/DVD player. This option allows you to burn your disc, close the disc, and use it in various CD/DVD players or on other computers.

Let's look at the features of recording a disc in the mentioned options.

How to burn a disc using the "as a flash drive" option

As I mentioned above, this option is suitable for RW disks that can be rewritten multiple times. If you decide to use your RW disk as a flash drive (that is, repeatedly write files to it and then delete them), select this (first) option and click on “Next”. The drive will be formatted with the Live file system, which may take some time.

Once the drive is formatted, you will need to drag (transfer) files onto it to write them to the drive.

Find it on your hard drive required folders(or files) to burn and, by clicking on them and holding down the left mouse button, drag them into the window of the disc to be burned (or use the “Copy” - “Paste” (Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V) functions for this. When you add folders and files there, they will be automatically written to disk.

Once these files are written to the disk, you can just as easily delete them from the disk. Simply select the file, right-click, and select Delete.

Please note that files deleted from such a disk are not placed in the Recycle Bin, but are immediately deleted from the disk.

After you have written everything down necessary files, you need to close our session.

For this purpose in Windows 8.1 And Windows 10 you need to go to the burned disc, unmark the selected files, and then click on the “Eject” button at the top.

IN Windows 7 you need to click “Close session” at the top, or click on the “Extract” button located there.

How to burn a disc using the "With CD/DVD player" option

This option is the most popular for burning discs, in particular due to the ability to use such a disc with various devices, and not just from a PC.

Select this option and drag and drop files onto the disk as described above. The difference will be that these files will not be automatically written to disk (as in the previous case), but will be placed in a temporary directory on the disk for subsequent recording.

When the files are added, Windows will notify the user that they have files waiting to be written to disk.

To burn to disk in Windows 10, you need to select the “Finish burning” menu item in the “Manage” menu.

In Windows 7, you need to select “Burn to disk” at the top.

In Windows 8, you need to select “Finish burning” from the top.

The system will prompt you to select a name for the disk and a recording speed, then click on “Next” (this choice is available in all OSes I mentioned).

If you choose to record audio files, the system will ask you whether you want to burn an “Audio CD” that will play in standard audio players, or whether you want to create a disc with audio data (“Make a data CD”). Select the desired option, and click Next.

Your disc will begin recording. After graduation Windows entries will ask if you want to burn another disc with the same files. If you don't need it, then refuse and you will receive your burned disc.

How to copy files to a CD-RW disc

CD-RW discs (an abbreviation for “Compact Disc-ReWritable”, translated as “Rewritable CD”) usually have the same capacity as the CD-Rs I previously reviewed (700 megabytes). Moreover, as follows from its abbreviation, CD-RW discs can be written to multiple times, which makes their use quite convenient.

Recording a CD-RW disc is not fundamentally different from recording a standard one. CD-R disc(the mechanism was discussed by me above). At the same time, the possibility of overwriting them makes it possible to select the first of the recording options I considered earlier (as “ like a flash drive"). By using the “Live” file system, files on such disks will be written to automatic mode, and also delete it from it, which will differ little from the same work with a regular flash drive.

Burn a DVD with files

DVD discs (from “Digital Versatile Disc”, translated as “digital multi-purpose disc”) are the next step in the development of optical discs, differing from their earlier counterparts (CD) in the larger amount of data stored on them (usually 4.7 gigabytes in the case of single-layer disk, and 8.5 gigabytes in the case of a double-layer disk).

At the same time, the specifics of recording on them are not particularly different from the above-mentioned recording on CD-R (RW) discs. Please note that for DVD recordings you need to have an appropriate DVD drive (you won't be able to burn a DVD on a standard CD drive).

Insert empty DVD-R disc(RW) into the drive, select the burning option (either as a flash drive, or with an CD/DVD player), drag the required files onto the disk, select the disk name, recording speed, and start the disk burning process.

If you are recording DVD-RW disc, Microsoft experts recommend choosing the “Like a flash drive” recording option.

Differences between data recording in Windows 10 and Windows 7

The specifics of recording in the context of various operating systems (including Windows 10) were discussed above. At the same time, I would like to note a feature of Windows 10, which has an additional tool for burning a disk image (usually with the .iso extension). Instructions are described in the link.

To use this tool, hover over the disk image file, right-click, and select “Burn disk image.”

A window will appear in which you will need to specify the drive for burning discs. Then you just need to insert a blank disk into the specified drive and click on “Burn” to burn the disk image.

Conclusion

In this material, I looked at ways to write files to disk in the context of various operating systems and types of optical disks. As I mentioned above, in most cases there is no need to resort to the help of third-party programs (Nero level and analogues); it will be enough for you to use the built-in tools of the Windows OS, which guarantee decent quality of the recorded discs. Try the tools I have indicated, they have proven their practicality and effectiveness in the daily practice of many users.