As you know, since its appearance on the media market, optical disks of various standards and formats have quite firmly entered the life of every computer user or home appliances designed to work with them. The software market was developing accordingly, and many preferred to burn discs using third-party programs rather than their own means of the Windows operating systems, which both then and now seem very limited in their capabilities. Let us try to figure out which programs for such purposes are best used, and whether such "grandfather" methods have lost their relevance.
How relevant are burning and burning discs today?
Of course, today, removable media for storing information in the form of the most common flash drives and removable memory cards are gaining more and more popularity. Available disk space they have much more than optical media. However, such devices also have some restrictions on their use, and in some cases just recording information on optical disks is indispensable. And for this reason, burning discs does not lose its relevance. There are many situations where such operations may be required. But first, let's focus on those that are most common.
In what cases may you need a program for burning discs?
As the simplest example, we can cite the situation when playing music on outdated household players, which are designed exclusively for the use of conventional CD-ROMs.
A flash drive or memory card cannot be connected to them. And very old models cannot even play MP3 tracks, recognizing only the audio CD (CDA) format, which you can’t just write to your computer’s hard drive or USB flash drive without first converting it. On the other hand, quite often (at least earlier), the majority of computer games or some specialized software were released specifically on disks, the presence of which in the drive when starting the main application was mandatory. Copying information to current removable media does not give effect, since program modules access directly an “iron” or virtual drive only. And here just some kind of program for burning discs could be useful, with the help of which it would be possible to record music and even clone original discs with software (moreover, even bypassing the copy protection that could be installed on them )
Windows operating system tools
Now we turn directly to the software, which can be used to record information on optical media. Turning to third-party software, as most users like to do, is not always worth it. If we are talking about the usual copying of files to removable media, when you do not need to set any specialized disk format or convert the source material, the easiest way is to use the program for burning Windows 7 disks or any other OS of this family.
The actions performed are extremely simple. There are two options: either when you insert an empty medium, the system itself offers to record, after which you just need to select the necessary files and confirm the start of the process, or you use the context menu with a RMB object or group of objects with a choice of where to send them to a CD / DVD-ROM.
If there is no media in the drive, Windows will prompt you to insert a blank disk and begin the copy process.
And, if copying in Windows-systems is more or less tolerable, then erasing or formatting rewritable media can often cause problems, since other media recording and burning programs may not subsequently perceive such media, believing that they are already present some information. In the best case, you can use the so-called multisession mode, but it is far from the fact that the recorded information will be read by household appliances.
Most popular utilities
As already clear, preference is still given to third-party software, which has a much wider range of capabilities than the tools of Windows operating systems. The choice of such (even free) programs for burning discs today is simply huge. However, if you look at the origins of the development of such software, some applications still do not lose their relevance. Among the most famous can be distinguished such as:
- Nero Burning ROM;
- Ashampoo Burning Studio;
- InfraRecorder
- BurnAware
- ImgBurn
- DeepBurner
- UltraISO;
- Alcohol 120%, etc.
They have far from the same capabilities, despite the fact that absolutely everyone can burn discs. Let's try to figure out what and in what cases is best used.
Burn optical media using the Nero Express application as an example
The software package Nero Burning ROM is perhaps one of the most famous and popular among users. It has several main modules, among which the most popular can be called Nero Express - a small program for the fastest possible execution of recording information of any type on optical media.
Most often, this utility is associated with the creation of disks containing multimedia of various types (music or video), however, in the application itself, you can use the most ordinary copying with fully user-configurable parameters, which, alas, is not in Windows.
It differs from the main program only in its limited support for the most basic disk formats (for example, it cannot create UDF or mixed CD / DVD discs).
In the utility itself, it is enough to select the type of data to be recorded, the disc and the final media format, add the necessary files or directories, and then activate the start of the recording process. At the same time, you can configure some additional parameters, which will be discussed separately. In the same way, it is easy to erase previously recorded discs, which, unlike formatted media using Windows, are recognized after that without any problems.
Disk cloning
No less often, operations to create copies of original disks without physically transferring information, for example, to a hard disk and then recording to another optical medium, are very popular.
In this case, burning discs in Windows 7 or in other systems can also be done using the applications presented in the list above, but the CloneDVD program, which created (and creates) copies of any (even protected disk) as much as possible, could be called the undisputed leader. quick and easy. The user will only need to insert the original media, and after reading it, an empty “blank” of the required volume.
Working with images and creating bootable discs
Almost any of the aforementioned program for burning discs (Windows 7 is used or another system is not so important) allows you to work with images. Unlike the operating system, which by default when opening the image file immediately mounts it into a virtual drive, the application provides the user with a choice: either create a virtual drive (if a special emulator is installed) or burn the image to disk. If there is a rewritable medium with the information present on it, it will be proposed to format it. In addition, you can use the manual creation of disks with bootloaders.
In this regard, the best option would be to use the UltraISO program, which has a special boot section in the menu. However, when choosing the appropriate software, it all depends solely on the preferences of the user.
The nuances of recording information
With burning discs in Windows 10 and below, with or without programs and their use, a little figured out. Now it’s worth saying a few words about some undocumented settings. Since we are talking specifically about programs, and not about system tools, they should pay attention to some important options and settings. First of all, in order to avoid errors or malfunctions during recording (especially music and video), it is recommended to set the minimum burning speed supported by the disk (preferably 2x or 4x).
As an additional means, it is desirable to use the so-called data verification at the end of the recording. Of course, the process as a whole will take more time, but in this case you can be completely sure of the readability of the optical medium and the files on it.
Brief conclusions
This is brief information regarding burning discs using completely different software tools. In conclusion, it remains to say that specialized programs really look a cut above the means of Windows operating systems, since they initially had a larger toolkit in their arsenal. According to the principles of operation, almost all applications of this type are absolutely identical, and the differences can consist only in some minor details. However, many recommend using Nero Burning ROM, since this package provides the ability to perform all the above operations, and the use of the program itself is simplified so that any unprepared or novice user can figure it out.