How to Record & Burn Onto a CD
- 1). Open the CD burner drive on your computer. You may have a button directly beneath or beside the drive that opens the tray, or you may have a button on your keyboard resembling a small triangle with a horizontal line beneath it, which also opens your tray. In other cases, you may just have a slot for inserting CDs, in which case you need not open anything.
- 2). Insert a blank CD. If you use a CD-R, you can burn content only once. If you use a CD-RW, you can record multiple times onto the same disc.
- 3). Close your CD tray if necessary by pressing the same button you used to open it.
- 4). Open your CD burning software. Almost all computers come standard with at least one program capable of burning CDs, and you can use a variety of different programs to serve this function, including iTunes, Nero, Toast and CDBurnerXP.
- 5). Decide if you want to burn to burn content onto an "Audio CD" or "Data CD." An audio CD will contain a list of songs, up to 80 minutes in length, formatted for CD players. A data CD can hold any content of your choosing for storage, similar to a flash drive. In most cases, your program will ask you immediately which type of CD you want to copy, but in some cases--as with iTunes, for instance--you will need to manually choose your CD type in your "Preferences" or "Options" window.
- 6). Copy the songs or other content onto the main browser of your burning software. You can do this by locating the files on your computer and using your mouse to drag them right onto the browser. If recording an audio CD, all of your songs must be in a universally-recognized audio format, such as MP3 or M4A.
- 7). Click the "Burn" button on your browser, sometimes indicated by the words "Burn Disc" or "Record Disc," or by a large red circle, similar to a "Record" button on a remote control.
- 8). Wait for the disc to finish recording before you use your computer for other purposes. By performing other tasks during the recording process, you risk the possibility of causing the disc to fail, ruining your CD.
- 9). Eject your disc when the recording process concludes. Your browser will inform you when you can safely remove your disc.