Lesson 6 Copying Music, or files and folders, to a CD

Copying Music to a CD

You can erase a CD-RW disc to permanently delete all of the files on the disc. You cannot erase a CD-R disc.

Copying songs from a music CD allows you to play the songs at any time without having to insert the CD into your computer. Copying songs from a music CD also allows you to later copy the songs to a recordable CD or a portable device.  Your CD-ROM drive and speakers determine whether you can listen to a music CD while you copy songs from the CD.

There are many ways to record your music. Some use the NERO program that comes with the disc drive they may have purchased.

I am using the instructions with the Windows Media Player as it is bundled with Windows XP.

1. Insert the music CD that contains the songs you want to copy into your CD-ROM drive.

2. Click the Play Audio CD using Windows Media Player.

3. Click ok. The Windows Media Player appears and the CD begins to play.

4. Click the COPY from CD tab (on right side).

5. Windows Media Player will copy each song that displays a check mark beside it to your computer. To add or remove a check mark, beside a song, click the box beside the song.

6. Click Copy Music to start copying the selected songs to your computer.

Note the first time you copy songs from a music CD, a dialog box appears, stating that Windows Media Player will protect the songs from unauthorized use. Protected songs cannot be played on another computer.

7. If you want to be able to play the music on another computer, click this option so a check mark appears.

8. Click ok to continue.

9. When you finish copying songs from the music CD, click X to close the Windows Media Player windows.

Windows offers two ways that you can play a song you copied from a music CD. Songs you copied from a music CD are stored in the My Music folder on your computer.

The My Music folder contains a subfolder for each artist whose songs you have copied to your computer. To open the My Music folder click Start, click My Music folder, click on the folder. You can double-click a song in the folder to play the song.

Songs you copy from a music CD are listed in the Media Library in the Windows Media Player.

1. To play a song in the media library, click Start to display the Start menu.

2. Click All Programs to view a list of the programs on your computer.

3. Click Windows Media Player. The Windows Media Player appears.

4. Click the Media Library tab (on right side). The first time you visit the Media library, a dialog box appears, asking if you want to search your computer for media files.

5. Click yes to search your computer for media files. Note if the dialog box does not appear, press the F3 key to search your computer for any media files. The Search for Media Files dialog box appears.

6. Click Search to start the search. When the search is complete, click Close to close the dialog box.

7. Click close to close the Search for Media Files dialog box.

The Media Library organizes your media into categories. A category displaying a plus sign + contains hidden items. To display the hidden items in a category, click the plus sign + beside the category (the plus changes to -).  Note: To once again hide the items in a category, click the minus sign (-) beside the category.

1. Click the category that contains the media files of interest.

2. To play a media file double-click the file.

3. The Now Playing tab is for videos. To stop playing the video or sound file click the black square centered button at the bottom of the player. To return to your list of media files, click the Media Library tab.

4. When you finish working with your media files, click X to close the Windows Media Player window.

For copying files and folders to a CD

A CD can typically store 650MB of information. You can copy files to a CD to transfer large amounts of information between computers or make backup copies of the files stored on your computer. Making backup copies of your files will provide you with extra copies of your files in case you accidentally erase the files of your computer hard drive fails. Before copying the files you select to a CD, Windows stores the files in a temporary storage area on your computer. This allows you to review the files you selected before copying the files to a CD.  You can copy files to a CD at different times, however approximately 20MB of extra information is stored on the CD.  To make the best use of the storage space on the CD, you may want to copy all the files to the CD at one time.

1. Insert a CD into your recordable CD drive. A dialog box may appear, asking you what you want windows to do

2. Click Take no action

3. Click ok.  Note: A window displaying the contents of the CD may appear instead of the dialog box. You can click X in the window to close the window.

4. Select the files you want to copy to the CD from My Documents.

5. Click on the file you want to select. The file is highlighted.      

6. If you want to display information about the file, click on Details. Information about the file appears, including the file type and the time the file was last changed. (To hide the information click Details again.

7. To select Random files Press and hold down the CTR key as you click each file you want to select.

8. To select all files and folders in a window, click EDIT and click Select All.

9. To deselect files in a window, click a blank area in the window.

10. To deselect one file from a group of selected files, press and hold the CRT key as you click the file you want to deselect.

11. Click Copy the selected items. Note if you selected only one file click Copy this file. The Copy items dialog box appears.

12. Click the recordable CD drive that contains the CD you want to copy the files on to.

13. Click Copy to place a copy of the files in a temporary storage area on your computer where the files will be held until you copy them to the CD.

You should be ready to Copy selected files to a CD, or you can copy a folder using the same steps above but, click Copy this folder in place of Copy this file in step 11.

Click Start to display the start menu.

1. Click My Computer to view the contents of your computer. The My Computer windows will appear.

2. Double-click the recordable CD drive that contains the CD you want to copy the files to.

3. A window appears displaying the files being held in a temporary storage area on your computer and any files currently stored on the CD.

4. Click Write these files to CD to copy the files to the CD.

5. The CD Writing Wizard appears. Type a name for the CD.

6. Click Next to copy the files to the CD. Note; windows will automatically eject the CD from your recordable CD drive when the copy is complete. Click Finish to close the wizard

Click X to close the window for the recordable CD drive.