Jake Ludington's Digital Lifestyle

George says, "On copying data files why is the attribute changed to "Read Only" when copying to CD-R or RW discs except when ones uses a "Drag-to-Disc" program? I noticed on using both Nero and Roxio if you use the programs copy data to discs they all come up "Read Only". I never noticed this before since I have always used Drag-to-Disc method which does not change the attribute. Maybe I do not understand the functions but dragging to disc and copying data to disc are the same, are they not?"

CD-R media is by definition read only. CD-Rom, the format for most pre-packaged software disks and all CD-R media, stands for Compact Disc Read Only Memory. When you burn a CD project using software like Nero or Roxio, finalizing the project converts everything you just burned to the disk to read-only. Generally speaking, once you burn a CD-R project, its contents are finalized. CD-RW disks are re-writable, which means you can copy over the information stored on the disk, however, for compatibility reasons the disk is burned as if it were a CD-R.

When you use Drag-to-Disc, the formatting of the blank CD is slightly different than a traditional burned CD. When you copy files to a disk using Drag-to-Disc type programs, the software creates a file system on the CD blank. Using Drag-to-Disc with Roxio or Nero's equivalent InCD, the software maintains the properties of the files you copy when they are transferred to the disk, so from Windows perspective, it treats the copy of the file the same way it would treat copying a file from one hard drive to a second hard drive.