Re: Saving to rewritable cd’s {cd-rw}
Most new CD recorders support something called “Mt Ranier”, which allows you to burn directly to CD (similar to copying to a floppy disk, for example). In order to write to a Mt Ranier compatible drive, you will first need to install Windows XP Service Pack 1, available from Microsoft.
If your CD Recorder does not support Mt Ranier, you will need to install supplemental “packet writing” software, in order to write to directly to a CD. The caveat here is that most packet writing software is not freeware. Furthermore, packet writing software (DirectCD, InCD, DLA, for example) are not natively compatible with other Windows systems. Also, CD packet writing software will disable Windows XP’s built-in CD recording feature, so you will have to use the packet writing software interface to record directly to CD (Source: aumha.org).
If your CD Recorder drive supports Mt Ranier, and you have Windows XP Service Pack 1 installed, you can easily write to CD using these steps:
First, make sure that your CD-R drive has “enabled recording”. To do this, go to My Computer, right click your CD-Recorder drive, and select Properties. Go to the Recording Tab and ensure that “Enable CD Recording on this drive” has a checkmark beside it. Once recording is enabled, insert your disc. If you’re using a CD-RW, you can format by right-clicking on the CD-Recorder drive and select “erase this CD-RW”.
** If you want to save a file from the Internet to CD**, for example, simply click the download link, and a “File Download” window should appear. From here, click the “Save” option, and then a “Save As” window will ask where to save the file. In this case, select your CD Recordable drive from the pull-down menu. Note, however, that any file downloaded will actually save to your hard drive first; you will need to right-click the CD-R drive in My Computer and select “write files to disc” to actually store the downloaded file(s) to disc.
More information on directly burning to a CD using Windows XP
There is a web page dedicated to burning directly to a CD using Windows XP, available from [aumha.org](http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpcd.php). The page explains in great detail much, but the lingo is a bit technical and may be over the head of some Readers.