[Sionide]

Burning CD's, not fire

I've heard it's possible to burn a file larger than 700mb onto a "700mb CD-R" - I mean, the CD says it only holds 700mb but really you can squeeze more on, not a lot, just enough to fit a 710mb file for example.. does anyone know how it's actually done??

[Dickie]

Depends on your s/w package, what are you burning with?

[mungrymatt]

It's a process called Overburn. CAn damge your drive in some cases. Nero will do it.

[Sionide]

uhh, yeah got Nero obviously and Alcohol 120% as well?? What are the chances of it damaging the drive?

[Sidders]

I don't think it will damage the drive, only the CD.

[LastChanc]

Maybe this will help clear up the situation...

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cd ... size.shtml

Personally, I've always been under the impression it could damage the CDRW drive in the same way old hard drive heads could be damaged, though I've never seen any evidence of this...

[Sionide]

ok, why does this happen:

I have a file which in the file list on my hard drive, nero says is 741mb then when i add to the compilation, it says it's only 707mb? why does that happen?? where did the rest of the mb go?

[LastChanc]

Initially I thought it might be the way a Mb is interpreted by the application reading as 1,000kb as opposed to 1,024kb, though even if that were the case that's only something like 24mbish difference, so my only other semi-educated guess is the 741mb size includes the wasted space at the end of the file which makes up the "on disk" size whereas the actual file size is really 707mb...

(For every question there's an simple, easy-to-understand wrong answer... this might just be it)

[Sionide]

well, if the over-burn of 7mb works - which by the sound of it, it will do - then i can burn ALL these files which i didn't think i could...

you know there's a simpler solution which my friend thought of at school today, he just said he'd get me some 800mb CD's, no fuss with overburning them.. Lol.. wicked stuff

Thanks for your help everyone, especially LastChanc, cheers

[LastChanc]

There's always one smart-ass with a cheap workaround, pffft 800mb CDs... *shakes head* ...why not just invest in a DVD-RW? hehehe

No worries. Btw, if you try the overburn method I'd be interested to know if it actually worked as I've never tried it myself...

[Sionide]

i'm about to try it now..

DVD-RW way too expensive, i'm a poor student..!!

[David]

surely the overburn method means the lense of the CD drive just goes that little bit futher... which it would need to do with 800mb CD's anyway? Or am I completely wrong...?

DL

[LastChanc]

I believe you're right David, though if you tried to overburn a 800mb CD this would then, in theory anyway, take the burning lens further than it's designed distance. But then, what do I know, I'm not a CD burner designer, or the writer of the software. I think the person who should have the answer to this should be Sionide, after all, students are supposed to research aren't they?

[Sionide]

I have some answers..

a) The cd's data is kept on a spiral round and round the disc right, with an 800mb disc, this spiral is much tighter, so as to fit more data on..

b) The reason the file sizes show up differently (I think) is that on the hard drive, the file is fragmented but on the CD it is just one continuous stream, when the file is fragmented there has to be a few bits of data which tell the machine where the next byte is on the drive..

c) I succesfully burnt a 724mb file onto a 700mb disc using the overburn method.. I'm satisfied

[LastChanc]

Your answer to B is good. I'd forgotten about that cuz obviously the FAT would only hold the starting point for each file, so that combined with the wasted space at the end of the data (there is a technical term for this also, but I forget what it is - also only applies to hard drive type storage and depends on the FAT type that's why FAT32 is supposed to be better than FAT16, and dun forget NTFS holds permission data on each file too).

And well done on your burning.. Definately worth remembering for future reference...