Using CD-RWs

[Dan Sontup]

I'm a writer and at present use floppy disks in Drive A for my
files of stories and chapters. I've read the warnings against
this, but don't have much choice now because I'm using Windows
95. I plan to go to Windows XP soon on a new computer, which will
have CD-RW, and I'll be using Word 2002. My question is will I be
able to use the CD-RW as I now use floppy disks for removable
storage of my files and, especially, revising and saving files on
the CD-RW over and over again as I work on my manuscripts? Is
there any limit to the number of times a file on the CD-RW can be
opened, rewritten, and saved again? Thanks for any help.

Dan

 

[Jerry]

I do not highly recommend this as it renders a CDRW disk as useless for
anything else, but if you format the CDRW, it becomes a huge floppy so to
speak. You can then drag and drop, over write etc.

 

[Jerry]

There is no problem storing Word files on floppy disc.

What you *must* avoid is opening files from floppy disc or saving them to
floppy disc directly from Word. This is the major cause of document
corruption.

*Save on the hard drive and copy to floppy disc.*

A CD writer offers extra opportunities for backing up files, but I would
urge you to avoid the packet writing systems that make CDRW (and in some
cases CDR) discs work like large floppy discs. Such packet formats are
notoriously unreliable.
I would also suggest that you avoid re-writable discs. These too are
unpredictable, and as the whole purpose of backing up is to have your data
available when you want it, you should avoid them. They should be treated as
purely a convenience tool and for testing. (they won't work with audio
either - your CD player will not recognize them).

CDR discs cost about the same as floppy discs - around 50p (UK) each, yet
hold 700 mb against 1.4 mb for the floppy. It is not going to break the bank
to use these discs fot your data storage!

Applications such as Nero (the market leading CD writing application) which
is likely to be supplied with your writer, have a facility to write ISO
multisessions. This means that you can add to the data they contain, until
the disc is full. ISO data formats are *much* more reliable than packet
formats.

Again, do not try and save directly to a removable medium, but save to the
hard drive and copy to the removable medium.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail (e-mail address removed)
Web site www.gmayor.dsl.pipex.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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[sf]

CDs (even RW) are fairly inexpensive. So if I CD could
becomes a big floppy, that's what I want. Have you used
CDRW as a floppy and does it work? I was told you it
doesn't behave exactly like a floppy. If it does, I will
begin using the RW part of my CD.

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[Charles Kenyon]

You do _not_ want to be editing files on a CD directly from Word, regardless
of the kind of CD! Move them to your hard drive to work on them there.

When CD-RW are formatted to act as open disks what happens is not what
happens on other disks. If you delete a file on a CD it stays there using
space and recoverable by special software until or unless you reformat the
CD-RW disk. Word creates and then deletes all sorts of temporary files on
whatever the source disk for a document is. At best, these files will use up
your CD.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory:
<URL: http://www.addbalance.com/word/index.htm>

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide)
<URL: http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm>

Word Resources Page
<URL: http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm>

See also the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Graham Mayor]

If you have packet writing software such as InCD or DirectCD, you can use
the disc as a big floppy - but you *don't* want to do this as packet formats
are notoriously unreliable and you *will* lose your data. Treat with
caution.
Direct Cd (but not InCD) will allow you to format CDR discs, which give you
a bit more reliability, but obviously if you delete files, the space they
occupied will not be freed. ISO multisessions, on CDR discs, as mentioned in
my earlier post are *much* more reliable

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail (e-mail address removed)
Web site www.gmayor.dsl.pipex.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>