This is part 5 of a 6 part article series. To read the introduction, please visit How to Transfer Your Photos from One Computer to Another.
What are the benefits of burning you digital photographs to CD or DVD to transfer them to another computer?
1. CDs and DVDs are relatively cheap.
2. Burning your images onto discs creates an external means of backup, this is a good idea should something go wrong with your computer, such as the hard drive crashing.
3. CDs and DVDs have quite a lot of storage capacity. So, depending on how many images you have, it can make the transfer of your photos fairly quick and painless.
What do you need?
- CD-R or CD-RW. CD-R stands for Compact Disc-Recordable. CD-RW stands for Compact Disc-ReWritable (or Recordable/Writable). With a CD-R, you can burn data onto the disc only once. With a CD-RW, you have the option of rewriting data onto the disc. For example, with a CD-RW, you can add more information to the disc at a later date or you can delete the data and replace it with new information.
- DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R or DVD+RW. (see above). The difference between the + and – is simply the preference of your disc drive.
To make a CD in Windows XP, simply insert a blank recordable CD and, when prompted, select to "Open a writable CD folder." A window will automatically open into which you can drag and drop the files that you want to burn. Once you've selected the files, click "Write these files to CD." And that's it. Note that with Windows XP you can only burn to CD unless you have third-party software that enables burning to DVD.
The process in Windows Vista is almost identical, but you can burn to either CD or DVD. Insert a blank recordable CD or DVD. In the dialog box that appears, click "Burn files to data disk." When prompted, enter a name for the CD or DVD and click Next. Once the disk has been formatted, a "Disk Folder" will automatically open. Files will be burned as they are dragged to that folder.
Next>> Transferring Photos with Windows Easy Transfer