How to "Burn" Data on a CD in Windows XP

You must have a CD-R/RW drive and Windows XP to do this.

First, put a blank CD-R or CDRW into your optical drive. You will see this window appear:

Make sure to choose the yellow folder, titled "Open writable CD folder using Windows Explorer." Then click "OK," and you should see this window appear:

If you add files or folders to this window, they will appear like the files you see pictured above. They will be gray, and will have arrows pointing down in the icon (like the "Shortcut" icon arrow, but slightly different).

Notice the "CD Writing Tasks" area, shown by the top red arrow. This will allow you to delete files you put into this folder, or to permanently write them onto the CD.

Once you have added all the files you wish, then click on the "Write these files to CD" link. Windows will then write these files onto your blank CD.

Most new software will write in what is called "Session Mode." In the past, if you wrote something onto a CD, even just a small amount, the disk could never again have anything more written onto it. But today's software uses something called "Session Mode," which allows you to add more and more items to the CD-R whenever you like, until the CD is full.

If you do not have Windows XP, you must get special software to burn optical disks. Deep Burner is an example of a freeware program. Easy Media Creator (called "Toast" for Macintosh) is a popular commercial program. These programs also allow you to use advanced options, and you can make special disks (including Music CDs, Video DVDs, and so on).