burning a dvd: what a pain in the ass

[invader]

All I wanted to do was to burn a data DVD...

It all started a month ago when Vista made me uninstall the tried and true
nero burning rom that has always worked fine for me due to "compatibility
issues".

So today I try to burn a data dvd... should be a simple task, right?

Let's start by using the great "reason to upgrade to Vista", the desktop
search. I type in "Create CD". It brings up something called create CD. This
is going to be easy. So I click it. Nope. It's an ancient version of Adaptec
Easy CD Creator that Vista dug out of my old XP install that (unsurprisingly)
doesn't work.

Now, let's try "burn". This time search brings up the copy of Nero Burning
Rom that vista had me uninstall. Not surprisingly that doesn't work either.

Okay, so let's look on the web. I google for "windows vista burn data cd"
(this ought to work, right?) Well this brings up a link talking about how to
use Windows Media Player to burn a cd. So I try that. total confusing mess.
which is no big surprise, because it's a goddamn media player, not a data-cd
burning tool.

So I start playing with windows explorer and I notice I can click on things
and "Send to" the DVD-RW drive. It prompts me to insert a blank disc. Okay,
we're making progress. Then it pops up and says "formatting disc" (uh oh,
it's a DVD-R). Not surprisingly it fails.

So I try "Send to" "Direct CD". Okay, this ought to work. Same prompt for
inserting a blank disc. Same stupid attempt to format it. I try it once more,
this time I select "more information" and I see that it's trying to create a
"live filesystem" on the DVD-R media. So I fix that and hit okay.

Great! Now we start "copying files"... progress is being made... This takes a
long time and I get suspicious when I see that my DVD drive isn't spinning.

So now pops up a window showing me the files on the DVD-ROM drive and asking
me if I want to burn them (apparantly the previous step involved simply
copying them from one location on the hard drive to a different, but more
meaningful to Vista, location on the hard drive). So I click "next" like the
good Microsoft user that I am.

So now we're "adding data to the disc image". I can see the hard drive light
going nuts, so I assume that we are once again copying the files from one
part of the hard drive to yet another location that must be an even better
spot for vista to locate the files.

Suspicious, I take a look at my c:\ drive and see free space plummetting to
new lows. Yes, I'm aware the disc image is about 4 GB. Vista ought to be
aware of this too, but it's still trying to copy all of the files (a third
time) into 3 GB of remaining free space.

Of course, the result is inevitable: "Not Enough Space on Hard Drive" and
vista boots the offending un-burned DVD back out of the drive.

Is this OS a huge leap forward or what???

--invader

Games I Play:
The Cerberus Incident, http://www.landofdev.com/cerberus/
Beer Asteroids, http://www.sb-software.com/beerasteroids/

 

[Shane Nokes]

It is a simple task to burn a DVD.

Select what you want and use the send to menu.

Done.

Now if for some reason you didn't partition your drive with enough space for
the temp image that's not vista's fault.

That's yours.

 

[john]

It is a simple task to burn a DVD.

Select what you want and use the send to menu.

Done.

Now if for some reason you didn't partition your drive with enough space
for the temp image that's not vista's fault.

That's yours.

once again spoken like a true fanboy.
"it works for me - what's YOUR problem??"

Whenever I hear you clowns I see this:

http://img15.imgspot.com/?u=/u/07/67/12/vistashere1173459825.JPG

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Why not just go to Help and Support and type Burn a DVD???

 

[Richard Urban]

So, what you did was to upgrade your computer without removing any
incompatible software first. The remnants of these incompatible programs
interfere with the proper functioning of Vista.

This is one of the reasons that I **never** do an upgrade for a customer. If
my customer doesn't want to take the time to backup his/her personal files
before they give me their computer for a "clean" install - I tell them to
take it elsewhere. It is up to them to protect their data.

After doing said "clean" install, I rarely have any problems with customer
complaints. Those I do have are "usually" when the customer tries to load
known incompatible software back onto the computer.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[Cindy O]

I too had trouble without my simple Nero. Help says "By default, Windows
burns discs in the Live File System format, but you can also choose to burn
discs in the Mastered format.". Maybe I'm a dummy here. I've burned Data
CD's that were not finalized, and Audio CD's that were. the help file says
"In the dialog box that appears, click Burn files to 'DATA' disc." I need to
record audio CD's for my church. How do I simply do that?

Why not just go to Help and Support and type Burn a DVD???

 

[Adam Albright]

once again spoken like a true fanboy.
"it works for me - what's YOUR problem??"

Whenever I hear you clowns I see this:

http://img15.imgspot.com/?u=/u/07/67/12/vistashere1173459825.JPG

Is that Justin?

As to your question "burning" a disk is too broad. Why kind of disc, a
data disc, if so to just drag and drop files to or to make a image
file of your sytem, a true DVD that can also play on a set top DVD
player, a rip of some commerical DVD or CD to make a copy, what? Also
what version of Vista you using? Some features have been crippled
which I'm still pissed about having paid a premium to get the business
version and then I find out several multimedia features are missing by
design.

 

[Adam Albright]

So, what you did was to upgrade your computer without removing any
incompatible software first. The remnants of these incompatible programs
interfere with the proper functioning of Vista.

This is one of the reasons that I **never** do an upgrade for a customer. If
my customer doesn't want to take the time to backup his/her personal files
before they give me their computer for a "clean" install - I tell them to
take it elsewhere. It is up to them to protect their data.

You just admitted in public you don't know what you're doing. How much
you charge for this "service"?

After doing said "clean" install, I rarely have any problems with customer
complaints. Those I do have are "usually" when the customer tries to load
known incompatible software back onto the computer.

Hint: Anybody from a 6 year old kid to a 90 year old grandma can do a
clean install. Heck, all you do is format, or start with a fresh hard
hard drive and put in the Vista DVD. Real brainer.

 

[Dan]

So, what you did was to upgrade your computer without removing any
incompatible software first. The remnants of these incompatible programs
interfere with the proper functioning of Vista.

This is one of the reasons that I **never** do an upgrade for a customer.
If my customer doesn't want to take the time to backup his/her personal
files before they give me their computer for a "clean" install - I tell
them to take it elsewhere. It is up to them to protect their data.

What do you do for those that do not know how to back up their data? And
really how hard is it to back up the my doc folder, email, address book, and
favorites? Not to mention do a quick cursory search for anything else such
as financial software. I always back up for my customers, it usually takes
less than 10 min and is an added service that customers appreciate and are
willing to pay for.

Dan

 

[Art]

Nero has a clean utility on their site that will clean out the old remnants
of Nero and then you can install the new patched version (7.7.51 I believe).
It works great in Vista. I've burned alot of CD/DVDs with it.

HTH,

Art

 

[Adam Albright]

I too had trouble without my simple Nero. Help says "By default, Windows
burns discs in the Live File System format, but you can also choose to burn
discs in the Mastered format.". Maybe I'm a dummy here. I've burned Data
CD's that were not finalized, and Audio CD's that were. the help file says
"In the dialog box that appears, click Burn files to 'DATA' disc." I need to
record audio CD's for my church. How do I simply do that?

I haven't used CDs in years, all DVD now, but wait I got some blank
CDs somewhere...

Ok, I'm actually trying it as I write this.

1. Put a blank unformated CD in your drive, let it spin up. When
the auto play window comes up if it does, just close it.

2. Fire up Media Player. Click the Burn Button.

3. Vista should seek out audio files on your computer. Read up
on how to make a play list, sort by artists, etc.. For me I
have my entire music collection in one place, so in the left
pane I clicked on songs. This gives me a alphabetic list.

4. I next clicked on the artist heading (you should see thumbnails)
of your albums if you let Vista do its thing.

5. I dragged Elvis over to the right where it says 'burn list' and
dropped the files. I just picked a 10 songs for testing.

6. Now just click the 'Start Burn' button and sit back and wait.

7. Vista should open another window with your Burn list and show
progress as it burns your songs with a scroll bar alongside
each title as it copies it to the DVD. It will say
analyzing, then writing to disc, then complete for each title.

Waiting for Vista to finish...

All done, took 3 minutes to write 10 songs in length from 2:11 to 3:40
minutes.

Ok, burning of CD done, pushed disc back in computer, auto play comes
up. I selected 'play all' and it begins to play. Elvis still sounds
pretty good. <wink>

 

[Adam Albright]

What do you do for those that do not know how to back up their data? And
really how hard is it to back up the my doc folder, email, address book, and
favorites? Not to mention do a quick cursory search for anything else such
as financial software. I always back up for my customers, it usually takes
less than 10 min and is an added service that customers appreciate and are
willing to pay for.

Dan

Of course. Which is why I stick it to MVP's that goof off and just
give smart ass answers.

 

[Richard Urban]

If a customer doesn't know how to backup their data, I tell them. If at that
point they do not want to do it, it becomes their problem. If they want to
pay me a for the extra time needed, I will hunt down and save to CD or DVD
what *I Think* may be valuable (usually what is in the My Documents folder
and anything else I can fine). Again, if I miss something that they later
want, it is on their shoulders. If they downloaded a paid for program (say
Norton something or other) and saved it under C:\Program Files\Office\Media
_ I may not find it.

You can lead a horse to water but you can not make him drink.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[invader]

So, what you did was to upgrade your computer without removing any

incompatible software first. The remnants of these incompatible programs
interfere with the proper functioning of Vista.

The only thing I was told to remove before upgrading was Nero, which I did.
As to where it drug up the old incompatible Adaptec CD creator I have no
idea, nor do I know why the (removed) Nero is showing up in the windows
search.

This is one of the reasons that I **never** do an upgrade for a customer. If
my customer doesn't want to take the time to backup his/her personal files
before they give me their computer for a "clean" install - I tell them to
take it elsewhere. It is up to them to protect their data.

That's fine for those who are able/willing to do a clean install.
Furthermore, if the software is unable to do an upgrade, then Microsoft
should say so, rather than claiming that Vista is capable of in-place
upgrades.

Having a customer back up his/her personal files is only a small part of the
picture. Since the advent of the wonderful windows registry, it's now
impossible for an average customer to back up his settings, unless he is
intimately familiar with regedit.

 

[invader]

Now if for some reason you didn't partition your drive with enough space
for

the temp image that's not vista's fault.

So you're saying that it was a good decision for Vista to consume 8 GB of
temp space to burn a 4 GB disc??? Was it also a good decision to make me wait
needlessly while it copied the data twice for no reason?? How about when
Vista copied the files until disk space was exhausted rather than checking
for free space first?? Another good design decision?? How about when it
assumes I want a live file system burned to a DVD-R?? Another good design
decision on Microsoft's part??

 

[invader]

Why not just go to Help and Support and type Burn a DVD???

Ah yes, the great help and support section that says when I insert a blank
DVD a dialog box will magically appear and ask me what I want to do with the
blank disc.

It doesn't. No dialog appears when I insert blank discs.

Must be another thing that went fubar in the wonderful in-place upgrade.

Of course the Help and Support system doesn't tell me what to do when I
insert a blank disc and nothing happens.

 

[invader]

Nero has a clean utility on their site that will clean out the old remnants

of Nero and then you can install the new patched version (7.7.51 I believe).
It works great in Vista. I've burned alot of CD/DVDs with it.

Finally! Someone with an actual useful suggestion. I will try this; hopefully
the new version will be a free upgrade from whatever version I was using.

 

[Art]

Finally! Someone with an actual useful suggestion. I will try this;
hopefully
the new version will be a free upgrade from whatever version I was using.

I hope it works for you.

Here's the link for 7:

http://www.nero.com/nero7/enu/Clean_Tools.html

Here's a link for other versions:

http://www.nero.com/nero6/enu/Clean_Tools.html

I've only tried it with 7 myself

Art

 

[PTravel]

Nero 6 works fine with Vista. Nero Express does not, but I never use it.
I've burned a number of DVDs (video and data) with Nero 6 under Vista.

 

[Guest]

You've installed too many CD burning programs. Nero is one program you want
to never install (as it can screw many things up, not just burning).