CD Burning WoesHave you ever burned a CD for a friend, but it won't play on their computer? It plays fine on your system, but the other computer acts like there's nothing on the CD. CD drives differ considerably in their ability to read homemade CDs. Unlike commercial CDs, where bits are pits are pressed into the disk to represent information, CD burners in home computers rely on using a laser to produce different colored spots to represent the same information. CDs made on a computer don't have as much contrast as commercially made CDs, and some CD players, especially older ones, have trouble with them. Fortunately it's usually possible work around the problem. The fixes involve doing things differently when you burn CDs. If you burned the CD on a rewritable disk, try putting the information on a read-only (CD-R) disk. CD-R disks have more contrast than CD-RWs and only cost about half as much. (Of course you can't re-use the CD and you have to write all the information at once, but re-use is usually less of a consideration in a disk you're passing on to someone.) Sometimes you can make a disk readable by slowing down the write speed. Most CD burners have the option to write at 4X instead of their normal, higher, speed. This tends to produce more distinct differences between the ones and zeroes. Finally, you can upgrade the computer with a newer CD drive. CD drives are inexpensive and generally the newer ones do a much better job of reading home-burned CDs.
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Acronis Inc. Backup software.