Overwriting Backup files on CD-RW uses 700MB space for 4.8 MB file

[Guest]

I'm backing up my Microsoft Money file daily using the XP wizard. The file is written to the hard drive and a balloon then pops up on the task bar that says you have files waiting to be wirtten to CD. I open the dialog and click on write these files to CD. Everything works fine but eventually (about a month and a half of backups) I get a message that says the CD is full. When I view the CD properties in explorer, I see that the actual file is ~ 4.76 MB (approximately 0.12 MB larger than the same file on the prior backup CD) but the space remaining is 0

Please reply to my e-mail if you know the answer to this riddle.

 

[Guest]

XP's Native program cannot overwrite files

-----Original Message-----
I'm backing up my Microsoft Money file daily using the

XP wizard. The file is written to the hard drive and a
balloon then pops up on the task bar that says you have
files waiting to be wirtten to CD. I open the dialog and
click on write these files to CD. Everything works fine
but eventually (about a month and a half of backups) I
get a message that says the CD is full. When I view the
CD properties in explorer, I see that the actual file is
~ 4.76 MB (approximately 0.12 MB larger than the same
file on the prior backup CD) but the space remaining is 0.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'm backing up my Microsoft Money file daily using the XP wizard. The file is written to the hard drive and a balloon then pops up on the task bar that says you have files waiting to be wirtten to CD. I open the dialog and click on write these files to CD.

You are not overwriting the file - you are writing a new 'session'
including the file. And each session has an overhead of about 14MB. If
the file has the same name as one previously there, then Windows will
only see the most recent version - but the old ones are still present.
So after about 35 or so such sessions the disk is full. This method of
burning CDs is not suitable for your purpose - you need one of the
'Packet Writing' UDF systems. See http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpcd.htm