Best utility for burning data to disk? (Urgent)

Factual Questions
1

Can you recommend good utility for burning files to CD or DVD drive, free or cheap to download?

Windows XP, Media Edition. I have a burnable drive, but no good software to make use of it. The pre-installed ‘Roxio’ crap just crashes all the time. None of the native Windows stuff seems to work well either. Help appreciated.

My need is to take files (graphics, music files etc.) and burn them to either CD or DVD as they are, and then ‘finalize’ the disk so these files are retrievable, playable or viewable on either another PC / or the PC they have down at my print bureau (yes they have one) / or my CD player that can play mp3s.

2

DeepBurner has a free version that I use all the time. Choose “Data CD” then “No Multisession” (aka finalized) to get what you want.

3

InfraRecorder.org

4

I’ve used CDBurnerXP which is a pretty nice basic burning program and entirely freeware.

5

CDBurnerXP is free and seems to work pretty well. I haven’t done very much with it as yet, but I burned a DVD of MP3s for a friend yesterday and it worked well for that. Another free burner program is Nero. You could probably do whatever you want to do with one of those two. I don’t claim that they’re the best however. YMMV

Wow! You guys are fast!

6

Why doesn’t drag and drop from Explorer work? Is the disk formatted?

7

Tried drag and drop from Explorer. Seems to have some sort of glitch. I burn the files, but then when I take that disk anywhere else, it’s as if there’s nothing on the disk. If I put the disk back in the drive I used for burning, I can read the data. If I put the disk anywhere else, even the other (read only) drive on my PC, my machine won’t even recognise there IS a disk in that drive, let alone tell me what’s on it. Other disks (e.g. precorded data, music CDs, even DVDs) work just in the read only drive.

Perhaps it’s a problem with the burning process not finalising the disk. Maybe I can fix this, maybe not, but I’m under terrible time pressure and need to find a solution this evening. Hence the SOS.

I’ve tried Nero before, but I’ve not seen it as free. My trial period expired, so now I think I’d have to pay for it if I wanted to download it.

8

Be sure the files are actually burned to the disk, not just sitting in a temp folder somewhere on the HDD. My writer won’t even let me eject the disk until the session has been written. I am using vista, not XP, but on my other computer that had XP was similar.

9

LifeHacker’s Best CD and DVD Burning Tools for Linux amd Windows.

ImgBurn for Windows wins hands down. It’s free.

10

Oops, sorry. I was misinformed. :smack:

11

I have to second this. I’ve been using ImgBurn for several months and think it’s fantastic and very easy to use too.

12

You usually need to close or finalise the disk. But why not use a USB memory stick instead?

13

Nero express is free and would suffice the requirements that the original poster is asking for.

Nero burningROM is not free and has a 30 day or so trial period. allows you to author Audio CDs, VCDs and DVDs that can play in regular CD/VCD/DVD players. Also has utilities for designing and printing labels. Tonnes of frills that are not essential.

Edit: Nero Express is now called Nero 9 Lite

14

Seconded.

15

Windows does not finalize the disk. It leaves it open for more files to be added. But it should still be readable on any other Windows computer. And it would surprise me if a Mac can’t read it.

(I’m, of course, assuming Windows XP or greater.)