microsoft works

[suzannemt]

I'm visiting my mother and unfamiliar w/ works - I'm trying to show her how to use her word processor in works. When i put an RW disc in to save her work it comes out as a read only disc and we can't continue. What can i do to make it writable?

[HoustonIT]

Is it a "fresh out the wrapper" rw or was it just sitting around? It may need to be formatted. What OS is your mother running? Windows XP?

[suzannemt]

Thanks for the reply! She has XP, Home; the discs are Imation, fresh out of the pack. Prob. need to be formatted. How do I do that with Works?

[HoustonIT]

If the media is new it should be pre-formatted so that probably isn't the issue. Can you try a regular burnable CDR instead? Are you sure she has a CDR/CDRW drive?

[suzannemt]

These discs used to work.?? The reason we wanted to use RW's is that she is writing her memoir and wants to be able to save her work and go back and edit... to begin with she is new to all this and has a hard time w/ ANY glitches so i was hoping to be able to set her up w/ complete instructions so she can work on it on her own. She lives in MI and i'm in New Mexico...

[HoustonIT]

Based on the desired result (a simple method for your mother to store her documents on an offline media), I would suggest she procures a usb thumb drive instead of using rewritable CD's. They're so much easier to use. That of course doesn't resolve the orginal problem of not being able to burn RW media. When you say the discs used to work, are you talking about a disc you used before to save data on, or do you just mean the brand? If it is one you had been using before it might have been "closed out" so nothing else could be added. Do you see and CD buring software on her pc like Sonic, EasyCD, or Nero?

[bobbyraw]

why are you using RW disk to save directly from works. why not save to the hard drive, and when do backup on the RW therefore, save every day on the hard drive and every 3 days back up to the RW or use a flash drive as my fellow poster suggest. microsoft programs are only going to read the disk file as read only if you open the file from the cd. although the cd is RW.

[MidiMagic]

CDRW disks don't work like other media. They have to be erased backwards and recorded forwards, like recording tape.

A bare CDRW can't be used like other media. It must be used with CD burner software, such as EZ Creator.

Formatted CDRW can be used with drag and drop, but such a disk works only with the drag and drop software used, and can't be read on other machines.

Also realize that Works is so old that it has no idea what a writable CD or a flash drive is.