Copying antivirus file to a CD-R or CD-RW

It's very easy to copy file to a flash disk when we want to move our work to another computer. It's also very easy to get viruses infected by using this way. This is because flash disk can't be write protected when you use, unlike floppy disk. So, you have to scan the flash disk frequently.

Another way to safely transfer files which we can use is to use the CD-RW. Nowadays, it's quite easy to burn some files to a CD-RW using Windows XP or later. Why should we use CDR or CDRW? The main reasons are:

1. CD-RW is rewriteable, so when we don't need the files anymore, we can just delete them.
2. It won't be infected by viruses, cause it takes time to burn the virus program in it. :)
I believe no small programs or viruses can do this. Or if there is, it will really slow down the computer or the chance of getting virus is really really small. Or it's really impossible if you use the CDR in an ordinary CD ROM drive (I mean not CD writer).

This is what I do, when I think it's risky to use my flash disk in someone's computer that I suspect it to have a lot of viruses. I also do this when I help my friends clean the viruses of their computer. Install the antivirus right from CD is safer than directly from flash disk.

Video conversion for burning solution

Last night, when I was doing to burn my slide show AVI files to a blank disc to make VCD, I got a problem. It took me about 3 times repeatedly encoding and trying burning. I use Nero Burning ROM for this job, but never succeeded last night. Then I tried to lower down the speed till 8x, and still failed.

I thought I had to buy a new one to do that, but I had to finished it as soon as possible. It's already very late at night. Then, something came across my mind. I thought maybe I could try encoding with a video converter after three times failed encoding with Nero internal encoder. Then I started to use my favorite video converter. It's Koyote Free Video Converter.

I started adding files and then converted the AVI files to Mpeg1. After that, I returned to Nero to start my recording again. It also went through encoding process, but it took lesser time. And it really works this time. I successfully burnt my Mpeg1 files to a blank disc as VCD at 8x speed.

The conclusion is if you can't burn AVI files directly to your CD writer, try using conversion first and lower down the burning speed. This is also important when you have limited harddisk space. You can then delete the AVI files and keep your Mpeg1 as archive.

Recording with an old CD writer

CD writers, like any other hardware when used for a certain time, will start losing their capability of recording in high speed. I've got a SONY CD writer, which I bought a few years ago. At first it can burn VCD in high speed up to 48x (but I usually use it at 24x or 16x only). Now, the maximum speed I can burn is only 8x. I use Nero Burning ROM that bundled when I bought.

So, when you noticed that recording seems to be always failed, you can decrease the recording speed and see whether it burn at lower speed. If you can't even burn CDs at 8x or even 4x, I think you should consider buying a new one. But try once again burning data with Windows writing CD function in the Explorer. If you can't even do this, maybe you should really buy a new CD writer.