Member Avatar for Foxtrot

XP Pro, SP2. "Power2Go" CD/DVD burner

Hi all, I have a CD burning project and am very shaky on this process. I have copied a few CDs on this machine and they turned out well

I am going to write a long manuscript, approx 500 pages, and it will be broken up into a number of chapters/sections. Each one will be a "stand-alone" section and will be printed onto paper upon its completion. This part I need no help with.

The entire manuscript will be copied onto a disk and I want to copy each section as it is completed. I have been told, by someone who has never done this, that I should use a CD-RW. I want the ability to be able to take a section out, and replace it in a different order. Is this possible?

I was told that after I have copied the entire manuscript, the disk will show at its beginning, a list of contents and I can choose between them for viewing. I have looked everywhere for a tutorial for this particular task but to no avail. Sure hope I explained myself well enough.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Foxtrot. :confused:

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A short, practical plan that builds on what , and pointed out: keep a writable, portable "master" for active work and make immutable snapshots for long-term storage. Use a USB flash drive or small external SSD as the editable master so you can reorder or replace chapter files easily; when you want a permanent copy, burn a write-once disc (or better, keep an additional offsite/electronic copy). Rewritable optical media (CD-RW/DVD-RW) are convenient for temporary use but are not ideal as the sole archival copy. (clir.org)

Important detail on optical discs: packet-writing software can make a disc look like a removable folder, but deletions or edits on optical media often just add new instances or mark old data as hidden, so the disc can fill and become less compatible over time. Frequent sector rewrites also wear rewritable optical layers; that makes CD-RW better for short-term edits than for a primary archive. (en.wikipedia.org)

Why a flash drive works and what to watch for: NAND flash has finite program/erase endurance (SLC/MLC/TLC tradeoffs), so consumer sticks are not indestructible but will handle the kind of chapter-by-chapter edits you describe far better than optical RW media. Pick capacity and a filesystem to match the devices you must plug into: FAT32 gives the widest legacy compatibility but has a 4 GB single-file limit; exFAT/NTFS avoid that limit if the target systems support them. Use clear filenames (numeric prefixes like 01_ChapterTitle) so ordering is obvious. (techtarget.com)

Quick checklist for : (1) keep the working copy on the flash drive; (2) name files with numeric prefixes so you can reorder easily; (3) snapshot to a write-once medium or cloud and use the burner software's "verify after burn" option to confirm each archive; (4) follow the 3-2-1 rule (multiple copies, multiple media, one offsite). Label discs and keep a dated manifest so you can restore any snapshot later. (studylib.net)

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Member Avatar for Dortz

It's a great idea, but the implementation could be kinda shakey... CD-RW's tend to only be reliable after four or five re-writes generally. You'd be better off dropping the cash on a jump drive.

as for you second question, I don't think i've ever heard of that functionality. Could you be more specific in what you want?

Member Avatar for Foxtrot

Hi Dortz, thanks for the response.

I take your point about the CD-RW not being reliable after a few rewrites; this will be at least 20 chapters. Not sure what you mean by "jump drive", I've been looking at USB flash drives, is it that or something similar?

I thought I may not have expressed myself well in my second question. Let's say the completed work is twenty chapters. I decide I need to remove chapter 3 from the manuscript, and replace it in a new position, between chapters 9 and 10. Possible?

Back to those flash drives, I was looking at some that could hold one gigabyte. That would be an ideal solution as one of them would hold many such manuscripts.

- Foxtrot

Member Avatar for chrisbliss18

I would recommend a flash drive for what you are wanting to do.

You seem to misunderstand how a CD-RW disk works. It's not some kind of databasing system that can track slight modifications to files, it's just a standard file system with some limitations since it's a CD-RW. If you want to add files, that is easy to do, but if you want to modify or remove files, you would have to empty all the disk's contents, and rewrite the data that you want to be on the disk. So, if you were keeping this entire manuscript as one file, each time you updated that file, you would have to empty the disk, and rewrite that file.

I don't fully understand why this manuscript has to be modifiable on a portable medium. Will you be working on this on many different systems? If so, the flash drive would be ideal and would give you the smallest risk of data corruption/loss while offering a greater level of cross-system compatibility than the CD-RW would. If you are not going to be modifying this manuscript on many different systems, just keep it on the harddrive of the system that you use.

Member Avatar for Foxtrot

Hi Chrisbliss18, thanks for the response.

I understand what you're saying about the CD-RW. I have never used them and know little to nothing about them so yours and Dortz's input is valuable. Looks like I'll run out and grab a flash drive. Only one storage medium need to be modifiable, it can be used as the master to change the copy on this hard drive and to create new CDs.

Why? I will be sharing the information with others, and as the information will be quite valuable and almost irreplaceable I need to store it in several places other than only in this computer. And it must be transportable.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the information.

- Foxtrot. :)

Member Avatar for Dortz

i don't know that you'd need something as big as a 1gig drive. they can begin to get a little pricey, (although they are starting to come down as technology improves) it is more than reasonable to use something a little more cost effective. you can get a USB 2.0 (very fast and reliable) compatible flash drive with 64 megs of space for about 40 dollars. (BTW: my estimate on a 500 page word document is no more than 4 mb, so you'll be fine)

Member Avatar for Foxtrot

Sounds good Dortz, I'll hit the catalogs.

Member Avatar for wally_lawless

Hey Dortz,

Not sure where you're buying your USB drives, but you're getting ripped off! I'm in Canada and if I go into a Best Buy for $40 I can get a 512mb USB key, 1 gig for $69.99. As usual, I would recomment getting as much as you can reasonably afford, I highly doubt that once you've got truly portable storage at your fingertips that you'll only use it strictly for your manuscript.

Just my thoughts....

Member Avatar for Foxtrot

Hey Dortz,

Not sure where you're buying your USB drives, but you're getting ripped off! I'm in Canada and if I go into a Best Buy for $40 I can get a 512mb USB key, 1 gig for $69.99. As usual, I would recomment getting as much as you can reasonably afford, I highly doubt that once you've got truly portable storage at your fingertips that you'll only use it strictly for your manuscript.

Just my thoughts....

Hi Wally, sorry for the no response but I didn't get a notification mail to tell me you are here. My fault, I have them being forwarded to a second address and it must have happened when I was setting that up.

I am getting ready to buy the new drive and saw so much info that I decided to come back here and review what Dort and chrisbliss18 said. You see guys I am seeing; Flash Drives, Jump Drives, Thumb Drives and now Wally you mention USB Key. Seeing they all seem to be pluggable into a USB port, are they are pretty much the same animal? Do the same job?

I'll probably get one Gig, they seem to run around US$60.00-70.00. But I need to know the differences, if any.

I do have another task for it now too. I want to save the following onto it; All "My Documents" including My Pictures, My Downloads (only .exe files) and my "Favorites". I will be adding all this into another new computer with the same operating system. Both computers will eventually pretty much be the same.

Thanks for any updated info you guys can give...

- Foxtrot :)

Member Avatar for wally_lawless

Yeah, the nameing for these things is a real pain. They're all the same deal. My main recommdation: don't get any of the fat ones (fat as in thicker/wider than the USB connection itself). Reason being, most USB ports on PCs and laptops are recessed at least a little bit, if your USB drive is much thicker than the port then the connector might not fit all the way into the port and you'll have to carry around as USB extension to get the damned thing to work, a pain in the ass, trust me!

I've had great luck with Sandisk and Kingston and they're priced very well. Most of them now offer some sort of encryption system, be careful with these if any of your potential target PCs isn't yours (ie work) as the software usually has to be installed on each PC you use the key on which you might not have access to do on somebody else's PC.

Just some ideas.

Member Avatar for Foxtrot

Yeah, the nameing for these things is a real pain. They're all the same deal. My main recommdation: don't get any of the fat ones (fat as in thicker/wider than the USB connection itself). Reason being, most USB ports on PCs and laptops are recessed at least a little bit, if your USB drive is much thicker than the port then the connector might not fit all the way into the port and you'll have to carry around as USB extension to get the damned thing to work, a pain in the ass, trust me!

I've had great luck with Sandisk and Kingston and they're priced very well. Most of them now offer some sort of encryption system, be careful with these if any of your potential target PCs isn't yours (ie work) as the software usually has to be installed on each PC you use the key on which you might not have access to do on somebody else's PC.

Just some ideas.

Okay thanks Wally. I've seen both of those advertised all over so I'll go grab one of those. Good thinking about the thickness, that sure would be a pain.

- Foxtrot :cheesy:

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