cd

Infopackets Reader Amy O. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently installed Roxio Easy CD Creator (ECD) 5 Platinum on my PC. Ever since then, my CD Autorun feature would not work. I later decided to uninstall ECD5 in order to restore the Autorun feature, ... but my CD ROM still refuses to Autorun a disc whenever I put it in the drive. Do you have any suggestions to get my Autorun to work? " My response: Autorun won't work unless a feature called Auto Insert Notification and/or AutoPlay is turned on. Auto Insert Notification works by periodically polling a CD ROM drive for the purpose of ... (view more)

Yesterday's feature article on Eazy Backup stirred up some emotions from a few Infopackets Readers. In fact, Tina P. from Franklin, Indiana told me about her recent horror story: " Dear Dennis, I am grinning now, although I wasn't on Monday! I just ... finished reading yesterday's feature article on Eazy Backup , and must admit: doing regular backups is very important. I don't know if it was a combination of the full moon last Friday and Monday's date being the 13th -- but it seems that all of my electronic equipment have formed a revolt. On Thursday, my desktop's motherboard finally gave ... (view more)

Over the weekend, Lanny B. indirectly asked me a question about how to span an archive using WinBackup : " Hi Dennis! As always, love your newsletter! Keep up the good work. I'm writing today about WinBackup . It seems that the program currently ... does not support my CD-R/W burner (LITE-ON LTR-24102B). Whenever I try to run a backup and record to the burner, all I get is an error message which states that my 'CD-R/W drive is not supported.' There is no mention if / or when WinBackup will support the writer in the future. What can I do? " Recall -- WinBackup is a simple-to-use backup ... (view more)

Today I received an email from Rose J. who recently downloaded my video tutorial and eBook on How to Install / Reinstall Windows: " I need to [copy your] video on to a disk, and I can't seem to do that. Can you explain the procedure in detail? " At ... first, I thought Rose was asking about how to burn the files to a CD Recordable. I later out found that she doesn't have a CD recorder, and she wanted to use her floppy disk drive to back up the files. That makes things a bit difficult, since the tutorial is almost 19 megabytes in size. Before I go into instruction on how this would be ... (view more)

How do you record audio from a tape cassette to the computer, and finally, to a CD recordable disc? That was the question I asked Infopackets Readers in yesterday's visitor feedback section of the Gazett e. Before I get into the reader's ... submissions, let me first point out that a few users recommended using the Line In port instead instead of the MIC port (as I suggested yesterday), for clarity reasons. Chris M. and Kooby both write: " It is better to use the Line Out or Aux RCA output on the stereo receiver rather than the tape player, because now you could record LP's, radio, or ... (view more)

Tom S. asks: " I have some old cassette tapes I would like to put on CD using my computer's CD burner. How do I hook the cassette player to the CD burner to get the best audio quality? " My Response: Audio quality with respect to a cassette tape ... recorded to a CD will only be as good as the source (tape) and the equipment used to read the tape and input it to the computer ... and of course, the ability to modify the digital recording in order to improve sound. Two great reasons for recording your analog tapes to digital might include: a) wear and tear: digital media doesn't lose its ... (view more)

Recall -- Last week, Rich V. asked, " Is there any way to stop Windows Explorer from spinning up my CD ROM drive intermittently? " In my response, I suggested a few ideas: use a CD buffering program, don't put anything in the CD drive so it doesn't ... spin up, and disable Auto Insert Notification for Windows 9x machines ( details in previous newsletter ). Infopackets Reader Doug L. recommend DisCD v0.99 : it disables CD-ROM drives so that they won't spin up when Explorer or similar programs are loaded (for Windows NT/2000 only); and, Dave G. says that you can hold the shift key on your ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Rich V. asks: " When I open Windows Explorer or have to select a file location from within a program, there's a long delay as Windows forces my CD ROM drive to spin up in order to view contents of a disc. Is there any way to ... disable this somehow, still use the Auto Run feature, and force a spin up when I explicitly select the drive? " My Response: As far as I know, a disc must be scanned at least once so that Windows "knows" what is contained on the disc -- and to check it for an Auto Run feature. Spin up can take place any time Explorer is initiated. If ... (view more)

Last week I generalized how one might go about systematic PC troubleshooting. In particular, I received a question from Thomas V. who was having problems with his Internet Radio (via Windows Media Player) and his CD ROM drive which both produced ... intermittent silence. Thomas suspected that the issues might be one in the same. I suggested otherwise, based on a familiar problem with TCP / IP packet loss that can result in Internet Radio lag. Since this matter is common, I further theorized that these two issues were most likely not related. But, wouldn't you know it? I received emails from ... (view more)

This is the third installment on a series of comments based on the following scenario: " When someone buys a new computer (either brand name or clone) that is preloaded with an Operating System (OS), is the seller obliged to give the client an ... original CD which includes the Operating System? " Last week I provided various short-but-sweet answers to the above question from various readers of the Infopackets Gazette. The gist was that retailers are required to provide Windows on a CD, whether it comes pre-packaged like Compaq, and Dell machines do -- or, if it comes with the basic ... (view more)