Hello, I have been using memorex cd's for awhile. i was just wondering if memorex were durable and if not what brand is. yesterday i popped in a cd of a bunch of pictures i put on a disc last april and the cd drive said the cd was empty. Ive put in this cd b4 and lookd at these pictrues so i knew the cd wasnt empty. when il ooked at the properties of it, it said zero free space. What happened?
Zero free space just means the disc was finalized, and no more data can be added to it. There is also the possibility that the disc was not finalized and recorded in a different drive. The recording drive will be able to read it, but another drive probably won't until the table of contents is written to it during finalization. Memorex CD-Rs are as good as other most other brand name discs when tested using sophisticated test equipment and industry standard tests. Many Afterdawn forum members prefer Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim discs above all others and despise any other brands.
You know what. i think that is it. i was able to see the pics on my old comp. The comp i burned it on. How do i finalize it on that comp? or is there anything else i can do on my new comp to see these picturees or finalize it
a little update. That old comp that i burned the pictures with hasbeen reformatted. does this matter?
A reformatted hard drive or computer should not pose a problem. Just be sure to use the same burning software you had originally used and the identical drive. If the burning software has changed or been replaced, you should still be able to pull the files off the unfinalized disc from the original drive, record them to the hard drive, and then start over again. This time, however, record disc-at-once in a single session and finalize the disc. Multi-session recordings and track-at-once recordings are more likely to produce problems from laser diode inconsistancies as it turns off and on. Recording in one sweep with the laser constantly on and just changing its pulses is far safer for long-term storage.
what are multi session recordings or track at once recordings? I am going to go do this wih my old comp. Can you explain what you just said in the least possible technical terms please. i didnt understand all that multi or one sweep recoding lingo. thanks
ok another update. when i insert my cd with the pictures that dop not show up in my new comp. the windows pop up that say "what do you want to do with this disc" pops up, and it says these options "open writable cd folder" , "burn a cd" and then when i go to open writable cd folder. Itssays the total size of the disc is zero bites and the free space is zero bytes? What gives? is it the same reason as before "i have to pu it in my old pc's drive?
The information is consistent with what I thought it might be: you recorded the photo files on a disc but did not finalize it. Finalizing writes a table of contents on a disc along with the number of files and the end of the recorded part of the disc. Once that is done, no other drive can record on to it; but it now has the information that drives need to read the disc and open the files. You left the disc "open" in order to write more information to it another time in a second recording or second "session." That's what "multi-session" recording is: writing data in one session, then stopping or even removing the disc from the drive, then writing more data to it at later recording sessions. The writing can only be on the original drive that wrote to it in the first place. Your second drive (I assume that it is a different one from the original) sees the disc as "open" for more recording, but it cannot read the disc (because no table of contents exists on it) or write any date to it. It's stuck. You need to use the original drive again to close or finalize the disc in order to retrieve the files. Track-at-once recordings are those that write one music track or one file at a time to a disc, even if the recording is done all at one time. This method is used for multi-session recordings. It can create some problems when the sections of digital data on the disc do not have very defined beginnings and endings. Multi-session recordings have to have starts and stops, but there is always a bit of a risk in linking the files together properly. A safer method is to write "disc-at-once" whereby all the data are stored in a buffer and sent as needed to the drive that just keeps on going until the disc is finished. The data sections have clear divisions defined by the software rather than a combination of software and the laser turning off and back on again. There is another method of retrieving the photo files if, for example, your original drive cannot be used. Recovery software often ignores any address system on a disc and recreates its own based on what the drive can pick up from a medium. That is a last resort, but it may work.
ok im gonna talk to the person i sold my old comp to and see if i can go over there and try thi out. If not im gonna have to use that software. Ill give u an update when i tak to him Thanks for all your help by the way
