what's wrong with DirectCD?

I recently got my first CD burner, the HP CD writer 9150i. I am running Windows 2000. The installation software installed DirectCD for writing to the CDs.

The main reason I got the burner was for backup. I thought the burner came with backup software included, but it turns out it doesn’t. I tried using the Windows 2000 backup program, but it won’t let me write to the CD.

I looked around on the internet and spoke to some people and I’ve been told that I shouldn’t use DirectCD, but should write to the CD directly. Does anyone know why that is? Also, is there a way to disable DirectCD without uninstalling it entirely?

Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to do regular backup from Windows 2000 with or without using DirectCD?

I guess I am not sure what you are trying to do. IMHO CD is not the best thing for entire HD backups since you will need several CDs for each backup and the whole thing is a pain.

If you just want to copy a few files or folders, then just copy them.

My computer came with a couple CD writers. I am at work now, so I can’t give you program names. One of them is for backing up files on that machine. The CD is a non-standard format. For a safe backup, you want a standard format that can be read from other computers.

Isn’t that a rather expensive backup solution? Burning new CDs for every backup? Even a R/W CD configuration would be kind of pricey for what you are trying to do.

Direct CD allows for drag and drop (basically a direct copy to CD) instead of having to do a file layout and then burn the CD. I would not recommend it as a CD created with DirectCD is only useable in certain CDR drives- not in your standard CD drive- and if the burn fails, you have to restart and re-add everything all over again (which is likely as you might wind up adding files to your layout that are currently being used by Windows). Use EZCD Creator, create a layout of the folders on C: that you want to backup, save the layout, test & create. DirectCD will only be advantageous if everything works properly.

i’ve seen this when 2 cd burning apps are installed at the same time. usually it (inexplicably) comes this way. the other app is usually (i believe) ez cd creator. try uninstalling ezcd creator and then using direct cd, if you are intent on doing so.

If you want to backup your whole HD to cd’s you need Adaptec Take Two software.

Direct CD is just another way to make your cdrom drive a HD & it gets a HD letter.

EZCD also by Adpatec is used to create cd’s. LIke when I want to backup a directory I use that.

I also bought an HP CD-Writer for backups, and I was very confused, even though it came with a backup program. The first thing you have to learn is, well, a whole bunch of things. Here are my notes…



Writable CD's come in two formats:
  UDF    = DirectCD = "Random Packet" = Does not have a
           FAT. This gives 530 Meg of usable space.
  "MyCD" = Has a FAT = (I think) ISO 9660 Mode-1 format.
           This gives 451 Meg of usable space.  In
           essence, this is a "DOS Disk".

TO USE A UDF DISK, YOU MUST HAVE DIRECTCD.EXE RUNNING
  If you have it, it can be flagged to start
  automatically at startup, using MSCONFIG.EXE

Writable CD's use two technologies
  CD-R  = Usable on all CD-ROM drives
  CD-RW = Partly usable on some CD-ROMs, but
          typically causes read errors.  Unless the
          drive is explicitly identified as "multi-read"
          don't use CD-RW's in them.

Disks made with DirectCD can only be read if the other
person has DirectCD installed.  For this reason, it's
best not to use DirectCD (even on CD-RW's) if you're
distributing to a wide range of people.

Note:
  CD-RW disks will frequently come preformatted in UDF
        format.  If you want to use them on systems that
        don't have DirectCD, you'll have to reformat
        them.
  CD-R  disks will frequently come preformatted in
        ISO 9660 Mode-1 format


As for backups, HP informed me that if you have an external CD-RW drive, you can’t simply mirror your hard disk, because the external drives need Windows installed to work in the first place! With some internal drives you can prepare a “disaster recovery disk”, however.

I’m using the CD-RW to do occasional backups of my most important data (and some program directories that contain data that changes).

For daily backups, I use http://www.backup.com. It’s super!

Hope that helps.

I use DirectCD for my backups. First, I use a command-line zip program to zip all the files that have changed since my last full backup (I use the file’s archive bit for this). I then end up with a 10-30 megabyte file, which I write to the CD in DirectCD format.

In the event of a crash, I’ll need to restore Windows and my applications from their own CDs, and then restore my data from my backup CDR. I had to do this earlier this year. Since the CDR is in DirectCD format, I just need to get DirectCD working on the computer before reading it. Worst case, I go to someone else’s computer that has DirectCD and read my data there.

The DirectCD is so easy (it doesn’t have to update the disk’s table of contents each time) that I do backups more often.

As I said in this thread, the software that comes with the HP CD-writers is very badly documented and explained. It is truly a PITA and utterly confusing.

[note: I fixed the link. -manhattan]

[Edited by manhattan on 10-10-2000 at 09:10 AM]

Don’t use EZCoaster Creator! It sucks. Get some good CD software such as Nero or WinOnCD. EZCD is better in version 4, but still seems to make too many coasters. I’ve never had problems with my packet writing software (Cequadrat PackedCD). I can read it in my other drive, but it’s true that I can’t read it in any other computer that doesn’t have the PacketCD software. But for me, it’s fine. I only use it on CD-RW disks. Most of the time I just do a single burn to regular CD, with good discs costing only $0.50, it’s pretty cheap.

Jman

150 burns: 0 coasters.