Hello,
Does anyone know why a person’s rewritable CD’s would not be rewritable?
Thank you,
Cosby
It’s scratched ?
It’s not really a CD-RW ?
The CD writer is very old and does not support CD-RW ?
There’s something wrong with the software they are using ?
The CD-RW has been left in direct sunlight too long ?
There’s a big lump of chewing gum stuck to the CD ?
It’s a side effect of living close to the large hydron collider experiment ?
The CD writer is almost worn out ?
Operator error ?
…
…
Cosby,
Some CD writing software has a flag that must be set if you want to create a CD that can be added to later -if that flag is not set the disk is effectivlye locked against future changes.
WC
Oh, right, it must be the hydron collider experiment near my house, silly me! 
But seriously, where would I look for a “flag?” I didn’t put any CD software on my computer. It’s about three years old. 
Thank you in advance for your excellent help.
?
How do you write CD’s without any CD writing software? With a pen?
I guess that you mean that you have no CD writing software other than Windows Media Player/ Windows built in support for CD writing? That could well be the cause of the problem - get a proper CD burning program. For Windows, Nero Express (Nero Essentials) is cheap and good (though it does not support DVD video disks - it’s great for data or audio CDs).
On Linux, K3B is awesome and free (open source).
Thank you, yes you are correct. Hopefully Nero is free, or perhaps the other programs are? I will look into this, thank you!
Hi,
I downloaded a bunch of free programs, but none of them helped to erase or turn an data CD to an audio CD. Are the free ones hopeless? What would you recommend for a free Music CD Authoring software, or at least an inexpensive one.
Thank you,
Cosby
K3B - Free - runs on Linux
Nero Essentials - not free but inexpensive - runs on Windows. (there may be a free time limited trial version of Nero)
Nero (full version) - costs a bit more than Nero Essentials, but includes support for burning Video DVD’s
Note that Nero is a rather bloated program that will by default loads of stuff that you will probably never use, so when you install it may be advisable to do a custom install and just choose the bits that you want. You can add other features later if you wish by running the installation program again.
Rewritable CD’s (CDRW) are not good for making normal audio CD’s. Many CD players will not play them.
Why would you want to record your audio to a rewrite???
If its worth recording burn it to a good quality CD and look after it. If its not ready for recording leave it on your computer till another day. If its not your computer, make it an MP3 and send it to yourself. If you want to just store it, make an MP3 and get your self a MP3 player and store it there. I’m sure rewrites have there place in the world but they do ware out in time. When you have the best take you’ve ever taken and its there on your computer, all the final adjustments are just right and it all sounds fantastic, put it on a CD that can’t be accidentally erased, their cheap enough
Des
I hardly ever use rewritable CD’s these days - normal CDR’s are cheap enough these days (less than 10p UK) and are more reliable. They seemed to be much more worthwhile back in the day when CDR’s were expensive.
I do occasionally use them if I just want a backup copy of many small files that will be updated regularly, or if I want a copy to move to another computer (without “wasting” a CDR). However these days I tend to use a USB pen drive for this purpose, though the CDRW comes in useful if I’m wanting to lend it to someone.