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What is a CD-RW?

¨ A Compact disc that is rewriteable is commonly referred to as CD-RW. CD-RW is a compact disc (CD) format that allows repeated recording on a disc. Prior to the release of the CD-RW, CDs had been read-only audio, to be played in CD players, and multimedia (CD-ROM), to be played in computers' CD-ROM drives. Now, any user with a CD Recorder drive can create their own CDs from their desktop computers. CD-RW drives can write both CD-R and CD-RW discs and can read any type of CD.

How is a CD-R different from a CD-RW?

¨ CD-R is a write once, read many format. This means, you can write to the disk only once and the data can not be changed afterwards. A CD-RW, however, can be written to many times.

¨ CD-RW discs usually hold 74 minutes (650 MB) of data, although some can hold up to 80 minutes (700 MB) and, according to some reports, can be rewritten as many as 1000 times. It is possible to save data to a CD-RW in the same way as one can save it to a floppy disk.

Where can I use a CD-RW?

¨ You can use a CD-RW on any computer to read data from, but can only write data to a CD-RW with a computer that has a CD Recorder drive.

¨ On campus in the ITS Computer Labs in 223 French Hall, 206 Murchie Science Building, and 3774 William S. White Building, computers are equipped with CD-RW drives.

How do I use a CD-RW?

¨ For instructions on how to use a CD-RW drive or to copy data to a CD-R or CD-RW, please see the ITS Quicknote 19 Using CD Rewritable Drives. (http://www.umflint.edu/its/helpdesk/quicknotes/QN19.pdf)