How to burn to CD - Canon

[khpaw]

I have a Canon SD700 IS which I absolutely LOVE!

My problem is that after 1 1/2 years I have quite a collection of pix that are all in my computer. I want to back them up on CD but there are no instructions of how to do this.

My computer uses Windows XP and I do have a CD/DVD drive.

Is the Zoombrowser software enough to do this or do I need additional software? The software presented to me to choose from seem to be mostly geared to audio - (Real Player, Windows Media Player (audio), DVD suite).

Thanks.

[TheWengler]

Is it a CD-RW or DVD-RW drive? Usually computers come with some sort of burning software (something like Nero or Roxio). Then just create a data CD or DVD depending on your drives capability.

[khpaw]

I know I can play a DVD disc in the same drive and watch it on my computer, so I`m thinking it`s a DVD/CD drive.

Neither Nero nor Roxio sound familiar and are not offered as options when I want to burn the photos to disc, although when I bought this computer it was supposed to be able to handle music and video.

[SpecialK]

I think you can use Windows Media Player (you might need to upgrade the version). It has a "Burn" option, but I've never used it.

[Bonzo]

I am not the best person to talk about CD/DVD burning as I tend to mess up as many as I do good ones.

Anyway unless your PC is very old I would think you can burn CDs and if its less than 5 years old ? it should be able to burn DVD's although it might be a bit slow.

There is a load of free burning software available, check out http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/gmm/fwcdburn.html

I would buy some CDs and or DVDs and give them a go. Get a couple of cheap one to start and you can practice on them.

Another option is to backup to an external hard drive, I brought a zip 500Gb for about £50 and it just plugs into a USB port. When its turned on it shows up as another hard drive and you can just "drag and drop" to it. I use the free Microsoft Sync toy although it says 2.0 Beta it has worked OK for me. Just setup the folder pairs and run once a week or more often if you like.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en

[Paradox]

Is the drive able to write to disks? Being able to read CDs and DVDs isn't the same - The drive has to have the capability to 'burn' the data onto the disk using the laser as well as just reading it off, otherwise you're not going to get too far. It should say CD-R or CD-RW if it's capable. If it doesn't...I'd invest in a new drive, it's probably not equipped.

If the drive is capable, you should be able to use the disk like a folder - Copy or drag and drop files into it, and there should be a burn button around on the folder window that will let you put them on. I can't remember if that applies to XP or not though, it may not.

[Bonzo]

My DVD writters have a big RW on the front and my CD writers have Readable/writable written on the front.

The main thing to remember is to "Fix the disc" at some point or else you will have the same problem as me. I didn't fix the discs and the writer went wrong and I now have 4 or 5 discs I can not read. Thats one reason I think the best way to go is an external or extra hard drive.

Personaly if you do buy another writer I would NOT buy a Sony one as my DVDs writen on there are not readable on my Maxtor DVD reader. They are only readable back on the Sony drive. A long story I will not go into but I avoid Sony products these days.

[khpaw]

Thanks - this is all very helpful information.

Part of my challenge is that I haven`t had the chance to learn how to do this fancy stuff with computers - but I want to learn.

My computer is about 4 years old but was top of the line (I know they get quickly outdated). My drive is an LG "DVD multi-recorder" that says both DVD and CD re-writeable on it.

When I`ve selected my pix in Zoombrowser it asks me to "specify backup settings". It chooses "D" drive - is this the best thing?

Then when I click "start backup" instead of burning the CD it begins copying files to a temporary location. I don`t know where this is and how to get them onto the CD. I also don`t want the files elsewhere in my computer taking up more memory that I won`t know how to clear.

Thanks again - I truly appreciate all your help.

[Sintares]

Never used Zoombrowser, but if you install a simple program like CDBurnerXP, that will enable you to burn both to cds and dvds without having to use Canon's program.

Simply install, run, select Create Data Disk, insert either a blank cd or dvd, the free space remaining will be show at the bottom of the window.

Then in the top window, browse to the pictures or folders you want to backup, drag the folders into the bottom window, wait till the files are processed and see how the bar at the bottom fills up to indicate space used.

When ready hit the burn button, if there is space remaining and you want to add more files later, then hit the Leave Disk Open, otherwise Finalise Disk.

Note, Open Disks may not be readable in other computers, so best to just add files once and finalise.