Adaptec Easy CD Creator Upgrade Trick

Many CD recorders (burners) come prepackaged with CD recording software: Nero Burning ROM and Adaptec (Roxio) Easy CD Creator are two of the most popular titles.

At first, learning how to use CD burning software can be difficult and cumbersome, especially if you've never burned a CD before. Most of us are able to cope with how to operate the new software after time goes on -- most notably after burning a few duds through trial and error. When it comes time to upgrade to a new CD burner, many users are disappointed when it is discovered that the new CD burner will not work with the old CD burning software.

Good news for Easy CD Creator fans

Keith N. forwarded an article to me which details how to upgrade to a new version of Easy CD Creator -- without having to pay for the expensive update.

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" Dear Dennis,

I wanted to tell you about a little trick I've found to make Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.0 recognize a new CD-R/W drive that would normally require the consumer to upgrade to version 5.01 in order to support the new unit.

I recently purchased a new Lite-On 24x10x40 CD-R/W drive to replace my old Memorex 2x4x24. Suddenly, I found that my old burning software -- Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 4.0 -- would not recognize the new unit. I was surprised at this fact, because I had all the latest updates to Easy CD Creator already installed (version 4.05).

After surfing the Adaptec, Roxio and Lite-On web sites, I found that the only option to my dilemma was to purchase Easy CD Creator version 5.01. I was very disappointed because this would cost me an additional $100.00 on top of the purchase price of my new CD burner, should I decide to keep using my favorite CD burning software.

Tweaking and prodding

I started playing around with my system, and was able to come up with a solution. The exciting news is that I've tested it on 4 other CD-R/W's of varying brands and speeds with the same success.

The steps

The first thing I did was to uninstall Easy CD Creator 4.0 on my system.

I then proceeded to the new CD-R/W manufacturer's web site and looked up my model to see which brands and versions of burning software the manufacturer recommended.

Next, I download an evaluation copy of the recommended burning software and installed it on my system.

Once the CD-R/W drive is recognized and working properly with the evaluation software, I re-installed Easy CD Creator 4.0. Note that I did not uninstall the evaluation CD burning software at this stage.

My next step was to install ALL updates for Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 4.0 -- especially Direct CD. Once all the updates were installed, the Easy CD Creator software was once again version 4.05.

Voila! After rebooting from last update, Easy CD Creator recognized my new CD-R/W drive.

Follow the steps in sequence -- or else!

There are 4 updates that are mandatory for this to work: 2 updates for Easy CD Creator which bring it up to version 4.02; the next update brings it up to version 4.05. Next, grab 2 updates for Direct CD 2.5: the first update will bring it up to version 3.0, and the second update will bring it up to version 3.05.

These are critical updates to install in that particular order. After that, the evaluation software that was downloaded from the new CD-R/W manufacturer's web site can be uninstalled. "