Robin Williams Mac OS X Book, Jaguar Edition, The

Copying Files onto a CD

When you copy files onto a CD, it’s called burning a CD. A CD burner uses a laser beam to burn digital information into the surface of a CD.You can’t just burn any ol’ CD, though—you need to understand the differences between CD-ROM, CD-R, and CD-RW.

CD-ROM (Compact Disc–Read Only Memory): You cannot erase information from or copy information to a CD-ROM, such as an old application installation disc that you don’t need any more. If you’ve been saving that stack of AOL CDs to use for backups, forget it. They’re CD-ROMs.

CD-R (Compact Disc–Recordable): CD-Rs are the most common type of disc for burning data and music files. Using Apple’s CD burning software, you can “write” once (a single burn session) to a CD-R. You can’t ...