backing up

G

gillys

I wish to save the whole of "my music" folder onto a CD or back it up as I
have downloaded lots of music from the internet and do not wish to lose it if
my computer crashes. Does anyone know how to do it and if I should use CD's
or floppy discs. Would I need loads of CD's?
 
J

JoAnn Paules [MVP]

CDs

And since we have no idea how much music you have so we can't tell you how
many CDs you need, can we? Time to do your own math.
 
G

gillys

I was not really asking how many I would need just whether it would be loads
for 1300+ tracks. The main question was can I do it and how do I do it and
would it be CD's or floppy discs. Do you know the answer?

JoAnn Paules said:
CDs

And since we have no idea how much music you have so we can't tell you how
many CDs you need, can we? Time to do your own math.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]



gillys said:
I wish to save the whole of "my music" folder onto a CD or back it up as I
have downloaded lots of music from the internet and do not wish to lose it
if
my computer crashes. Does anyone know how to do it and if I should use
CD's
or floppy discs. Would I need loads of CD's?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
D

DL

Assuming your sys was supplied with a cdr then likely you have the software,
e.g. Nero or similar
A cd will hold approx 600mb.
If you have winxp then I understand you can burn within that.
The number of tracks makes no difference, its track size that matters, or
folder size.
The number of cd required also depends on the type of backup. If you simply
copy it will require more cd's but if you use a backup app this can compress
the backup size. Using a backup app you would have to 'recover' using the
same app.
Finally, not really an Office Q

gillys said:
I was not really asking how many I would need just whether it would be loads
for 1300+ tracks. The main question was can I do it and how do I do it and
would it be CD's or floppy discs. Do you know the answer?

JoAnn Paules said:
CDs

And since we have no idea how much music you have so we can't tell you how
many CDs you need, can we? Time to do your own math.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]



gillys said:
I wish to save the whole of "my music" folder onto a CD or back it up as I
have downloaded lots of music from the internet and do not wish to lose it
if
my computer crashes. Does anyone know how to do it and if I should use
CD's
or floppy discs. Would I need loads of CD's?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
L

LVTravel

If you "back up" by creating a CD that will play in a CD
player, the maximum number of minutes that you can reliably
record on a CD is about 70 minutes (no matter what the file
type or size of the file) even if the CD is an 80 minute CD
since not all players will play the final 10 minutes or so
of the CD.

If you are trying to save the music files as data (using
..wav or .wma, mp3 etc.) files then you are limited to about
700 MB per CD. I have about 1900 songs in the mp3 format at
a lower bit rate than standard on this computer and it takes
2.9 GB of hard drive space. To back up these files to 700
MB CDs it would take me about 5 CDs to store them. If you
used the unreliable Floppy disks (even if all the music
files are less than 1.4 MB in size each to enable them to
fit on the floppy), I would need about 1900 of them.

To save them to CD, you need a program like Nero Burning ROM
or Roxio's CD Creator. The writing utility in XP may not do
exactly what you want.
 
G

gillys

Thanks for your reply. As my music is in "my music" which is in "my
documents" which is in Word I did think that Word was Microsoft office.

I do not have NERO. Don't know what it is.

When you say a "back up" application, what do you mean and where do I get it
from? I cannot find any reference to backing up in "help" for windows or
"word"?

Sorry but I am not that good on all of this technical jargon. I need it
explained to me exactly what I need to do.

Thanks

DL said:
Assuming your sys was supplied with a cdr then likely you have the software,
e.g. Nero or similar
A cd will hold approx 600mb.
If you have winxp then I understand you can burn within that.
The number of tracks makes no difference, its track size that matters, or
folder size.
The number of cd required also depends on the type of backup. If you simply
copy it will require more cd's but if you use a backup app this can compress
the backup size. Using a backup app you would have to 'recover' using the
same app.
Finally, not really an Office Q

gillys said:
I was not really asking how many I would need just whether it would be loads
for 1300+ tracks. The main question was can I do it and how do I do it and
would it be CD's or floppy discs. Do you know the answer?

JoAnn Paules said:
CDs

And since we have no idea how much music you have so we can't tell you how
many CDs you need, can we? Time to do your own math.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]



I wish to save the whole of "my music" folder onto a CD or back it up as I
have downloaded lots of music from the internet and do not wish to lose it
if
my computer crashes. Does anyone know how to do it and if I should use
CD's
or floppy discs. Would I need loads of CD's?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
G

gillys

Thanks for your reply.

I do have plenty of CD's so if it were 10 it would not be a problem.
However, I do not have NERO or the other one you mentioned. I am afraid I
haven't a clue as to how to even start copying them over other than just
dragging and dropping them. Could some kind person explain exactly how I do
it if there is another way? I don't even know what to save them as I am quite
a beginner with anything like this.
 
L

LVTravel

Mary, without digging deeper into MS help, do you know off
the top of your head, does the Win XP CD writer program
finalize a disk so that it can be used on a non-XP machine?
I don't think it does but hopefully you know for sure. If
it won't finalize a disk, he won't be able to use the backup
files from the recording in Windows XP in your first URL on
any non XP machine.

The second URL you posted is used to burn an Audio CD to be
played on a standard CD player. I don't think this is what
the OP wanted.
 
G

gillys

Following on from your answer regarding backing up "my music", I have bought
some CD's -RW format. They do not work. Does anyone know how to find out what
format CD or DVD discs my computer will take?
 
L

LVTravel

A CD-RW unit will take just about any CD-RW disk. What
brand and speed did you purchase?

The only major difference in CD-RW media is the RW write
speed. Originally the write speed was 1X and it progressed
to 2X, 4X, 8X, 10X, 14X and 16X. Heck, it may even be to 20
or 24X by now. The good thing is that a CD-RW unit that
writes to 10X can use any of the RW speeds but you only have
to make sure that your CD writing program is "throttled"
down to the drives speed if you are using faster or slower
discs. (10X drive and 4X discs)

Mary has given you the information you need to use the XP's
built in writing utility at the top link she posted.

If you haven't purchased a burning program you can use the
one in XP. It needs to be used just like the article posted
details.

If you have received a burning program (and one may have
been provided with your drive if it was an aftermarket
add-on or with the machine if it was a commercial unit
(Dell, Gateway, Compaq, HP, etc.) you need to find the help
for that program.

A DVD-ROM (and it can be a CD-R/RW, DVD-ROM drive) is a Read
only DVD device that can possibly burn CDs. A DVD -R drive
can use DVD-R disks and a DVD+R drive can use DVD+R disks.
There are DVD burners out there that will take either the +R
or -R disks equally well. (Note: in the previous
descriptions, the -R in the CD description does not
designate a minus or plus only a divider hyphen. A CD-R is
a Compact Disc Recordable disc. A CD-RW is a CD
recordable/rewritable disc. The DVD -R and +R are actually
types of discs and are not cross compatible in some
machines. Some standalone DVD players won't work with the
+Rs but will work with the -Rs and vice versa.)
 
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