[Casey76]

(cross posted from hardware)

OK, so this is a really dumb question about backing up to CD/DVD.

Having lost a whole load of irreplaceable photos when my old laptop went belly up, I'm really paranoid about security and backing up now.

Question 1) Although the CDs are RW, does this mean I can keep adding info to them over a period of time (like a floppy - miss them!) or can I only keep re-recording over the same lot of information?

Question 2) With a DVD-R is it possible to copy from multiple CDs onto 1 DVD?, or again, once 1 CD has been copied does that then prevent othed CDs from being copied onto the DVD?

Question 2a) Since my Laptop only has 1 DVD/CD drive, will I have to buy a second CD drive to read from while the DVD is being written to, or can this be done via the HD?

Although it probably won't take too long to creat 4Gb oh photos, I relly don't want to leave them lying around on my HD... just in case.

Sorry to ask suck a dumb newbie question

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If it is set to burn multi-session you can add untill the disc is full or the burner says it's not worth adding any more

Post the make of the writing software you use and someone will check it with you

[Retired Tech]

If it is set to burn multi-session you can add untill the disc is full or the burner says it's not worth adding any more

Post the make of the writing software you use and someone will check it with you

[Retired Tech]

You can build a dvd from virtually any source

[Casey76]

The writing software is NTI CD & DVD Maker Gold, which was bundled as part of Acer Arcade which came with my Acer Aspire 1683WLMi laptop.

Thanks for your help

[Retired Tech]

When you get the NTI write screen then click advanced you should have smart decision, no idea about that, then you have track at once, close session, leave disc open or leave session and disc open, these are the ones you need

If you close session, leave disc open you can add files but they will need to be in a different folder, so holiday pictures one folder, friends pictures other folder and so on

If you leave the session and disc open then you can add to the one folder if you want to make an entire disc which has pictures of one type

As long as you use CDRW to make the master copy, if it goes wrong then you can erase and start again.

It looks as if you can write image files so you store what you intend to make on your hard drive then write to a CDRW, if it is OK then write to a CDR check it plays OK, then if you get them cheaply enough, make a 2nd copy, then you can remove the image file from the drive.

Use a CDRW and see what smart decision does, it could be neat and useful.

Hope the link works, this is where I looked and it was page 42

NTI User Guide