How to burn a CD - The simple tutorial

About burn a CD

If you want to burn a CD, the first thing you have to do is to ensure two things: first is that you should have a computer with a CD or DVD drive which has this capability or an external drive that can do the same. Second, you also have to make sure that you have a CD to burn. You can choose from any of these two types of CDs:

• CD-R or Compact Disc-Recordable. Anything that you put into a CD-R cannot be subsequently erased that is why it is called a Write Once Read Many (WORM) optical medium. As such, this is best for burning data that you want to store permanently like music or pictures.

• CD-RW or Compact Disc Rewritable. As named, this disc type runs on a rewritable optical disc format. Data burned on a CD-RW can be erased and new data can be burned on it again. This is best for storage of data to be kept temporarily.

Once you've already decided between a CD-R or CD-RW, you should then start putting together the data you want to burn on the CD. Options would include the following:

• Music. This is usually burned for use in a CD player at home or in a car.

• Data. This is burned to keep needed files that are intended to be run on a computer. This type cannot run on a home or car CD player because it uses the ISO9660 formatting which is not compatible with a regular CD player.

• MP3. This is also a data CD but contains mp3 compressed music files instead. As it is also ISO9660-formatted, it is not compatible with all CD players. Unlike a music CD, MP3 CDs can contain more songs since they are compressed and only a computer or a compatible CD player can play it.

• Disk image. This refers to a duplicate of a disk which is commonly an .ISO image. If you want to keep an exact copy of a disc, this is the right option. A usable CD can be created by burning a CD from an .ISO image through the use of a computer.

• Ripping. This process refers to the taking off of an audio in a CD and then storing it on a separate CD or on a computer so that a copy of the first CD is burned.

After you've identified what to burn on the CD, you can now select which particular program you want to use. There are programs which are built in the operating system of a computer. There are others which come as a separate program. While some programs are just simple, there are those which can be very complex. You can avail of one these programs for free or you could opt to purchase one.

The final step is actually burning your CD which is really a simple task. You just need to run the software, insert the CD on your CD burner and then tell the program to start burning the CD.

Which program should one use to Burn a CD?

Following these instructions will bring you +1 to karma, however you can't burn the CD without the necessary burner. So to get the final result use the CD burner, which you can download right here and right now!