[Ludwig42]

Hi there, brand new.

Probably a simple question to answer, so here it is. I have been backing up my digital photos onto CD-R's. Apparently a CD-R can hold 700M. However, after copying about 40M of pics onto the CD, it tells me the disk is full. When I check the properties of the disk, it also says there is no more space. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[short101]

just a bit of a stab in the dark here, but if your pictures are high quality jpegs, and you save them as bitmaps, the file size goes up by about five times

[kiwiguy]

Another stab here, have you copied them a few at a time, creating many "sessions"?

If so, there is a huge wastage each time you start a new session.
Best to record them all at once.

[Moby]

Also the cd may have been finalised or closed during the burn process (you actually pick whether a disc is to be finalised or not when burning data/jpegs). If it has then no more burning to that disc is possible, even if there was 100's of megabytes of space left before finalising.

[slipe]

Disk properties will always say the disk is full. Windows can’t read the blank part and sees only what has been recorded as the full disk.

If you recorded the first session multi-session or didn’t close a session or the CD you will be able to record more – the recording software does know about the rest of the disk.

At the cost of CDR in the US I don’t worry much about the 15 Mb out of 700 it takes for a session. kiwiguy’s mileage may vary down under.

[Ludwig42]

Thanks for the ideas. The pictures are definately staying as JPEGs. Yes, I have done several sessions. How do you ensure that the sessions are not being finalized and what is the purposes of finalizing? I use burning software called Drag-n-Drop CD and DVD on my Sony Vaio. I save the files as data.

[slipe]

As long as you can read them all in the CD-ROM drive or another computer the sessions are being closed and the CD is left open. That is the right way to do it unless you are concerned about the 15Mb/session it uses for housekeeping.

[Ludwig42]

Thanks. I think that information is helpful. I'll try to monitor the number of sessions I do each time and try to increase the number of pictures per session. I'm still not completely sure I fully understand. The folders on the CD say they contain a total of 40M. The disk won't let me add anymore. If only about 15M per session is used for housekeeping, I'm quite sure I haven't done that many sessions. However, I'm still unclear on the finalising thing. Is there a good tutorial or website about burning CD's out there? Thanks again.

[slipe]

There might be if you would share with us what software and version you are using to record. They are all different. Look under multi-session in the help file.

With Nero you want “multi-session” checked. With EZCD you want to leave the CD open and close the session. With the XP software it automatically records multi-session. Most newer software defaults to multi-session when you select “data”. Older versions of Nero required you to find the multi-session box.

You can also set the software up to not close the session either. You can only read it on your burner until you close something, but it doesn’t have to write the lead-in and lead-out as you are just continuing the session.

[Ludwig42]

Thanks for all the help again. The software I've been using is called Drag n' Drop CD & DVD. It came on my Sony when I bought it. I'll also try using the XP software. At the end of the day, I guess it's not that big of a deal since CD-R's are relatively inexpensive these days. However, I'll continue to experiment.