Backing up music files to dvd-r

What type of music files do you have that requires 17 DVD's?  That would sound like at least one thousand regular (wav) music files.  What you need to do is create "data" DVD's and then select the music files you want for ONE DVD (fill up the DVD), burn that and the repeat for each additional data DVD until you have all the music saved to discs.

What you are attempting to do can be done but it's not the best method.  With that size file(s) the best option is to "back them up" (save) them to an external hard drive.  I know you are trying to stay "cheap" but cheap won't really get it. 

One other comment on "backup", although you are backing up your music files, do you have your other user files backed up? - and it's not for "IF" it will ever be needed but for "When" it will be needed.  I do PC support and what I recommend to my clients is to have either a 2nd internal hard drive or an external (USB) connected hard drive that has sufficient capacity to hold at least two full hard drive backups.  Then I recommend Acrons True Image Home backup software.  I recommend periodic (how often depends on how much or how often data changes on the hard drive) full hard drive backups (all partitions).  With this method, if the hard drive gets corrupted, has a virus or fails and must be replaced, you can completely restore the hard drive to the last full backup in about an hour.

I don't put much faith in the Sonic software that came with the PC.  I use Nero CD/DVD burning software and what I recommend to my clients. 

Again, thanks for your help. Now I've tried burning a data dvd using Windows Media Player but a new problem has come up. I'm sure I have WMP 11. And I'm reading that to burn a data dvd, just open WMP, click on the down arrow under burn, and click on "data cd or dvd." Here's my newest problem: it only says "data cd." There is nothing about dvd, unless you click on "other options" under the burn tab, and has nothing to do with "data dvd." I'm sorry to bother you again, but am I just stupid? I've recently (within the last month) downloaded the newest version of WMP that Microsoft had for Windows XP because I was having problems with WMP and some new speakers I had just bought. Thanks again.

tulsabravo,

Windows XP is not capable of burning DVD media, thus, WMP does not recognize
a DVD.  To burn a DVD, third party software is required which you have with
Sonic.  What kind of files are you trying to burn to a DVD?  If they are mp3s,
then you use Sonic option for burning a data DVD.

I'm finally figuring that out. What a bummer. But I started this whole experience trying to use Sonic, just not the right way it seems. Thanks for your help.

Hello tulsabravo,

Here is a list of third party apps you can use to burn DVD's:

MagicISO (Supports Win98 thru Win7)

PowerISO  (Supports Win98 thru Win7)

UltraISO  (Supports Win98 thru Win7)

DAEMON Tools (Supports Win98 thru Win7)

I have used all execpt DAEMON Tools and UltraISO has the largest feature set but is a little harder to learn to use. If memory serves, PowerISO was easy to use and had a good feature set.

Please Note: All of the apps listed above are not free, they are shareware and as such may have reduced functionality in trail mode.

Hope this helps.

Peace.

Thanks. I will try PowerISO in the morning. I've spent the last 2 hours with CDBurner XP, because I read it would work, but I'm about to snap. I wanted to burn "My Music" from Windows XP, which turns out to be 75 gigs or so. Then it tells me to insert the disc, and then it says it can't burn the disc because there's not enough space on the disc. Why won't it just fill up a disc, eject it, and then tell me to insert a new disc? So the help section tells me to download some Zip compression program, which I do, but then realize that it's used to compress over-sized files. That's not my problem. My problem is that I've got a ton of small files, but I don't want to move each file to the burn center, burn them, and then move more files. That would take me forever. Anyway, I'll try your suggestion, and thanks again for your help.

Yeah, I finally figured that out. I was just trying to do it as simply and as quickly as possible. Thanks for your help.

tulsabravo,

It is not a burning program issue.  A DVD disc is only about 4.7Gb, thus
75 Gb would require about 16 DVD discs.  You cannot burn the entire
'My Music' contents at once (you can, but not so simply).  Reorganize
your 'My Music' files into 4.7Gb groups then burn a DVD disc for each group.
You cannot compress 75Gb of music onto 4.7Gb of disc and expect any kind
of quality retention.