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Practice: How to Copy Your Photos to a CD

March 13th, 2008 | by Loren |

This is going to be a simple walk-through of the steps – I think this is one of those things that is easier to learn by doing a few times, and each time you do it you’ll build on your basic knowledge. So look at this as just being a practice run. These directions aren’t going to go into renaming files and organizing files into folders; those things can come later. All you’ll do is copy files (like photo files) onto a CD and burn it.

These are the basic steps for copying files to a CD for burning in Windows XP. All you need is a blank CD-R and you need to know where to find the files are that you want to copy on your computer. Photo files are usually in My Documents | My Pictures, but that can vary depending on the software that came with your camera. You could also use some files you created that are in My Documents.

The Steps

  1. Put your blank CD into the CD drive.
  2. A little CD Drive window will pop up and ask “What do you want Windows to do? Please click Open writable CD folder… then click OK.
    • If a window does not open, open My Computer and right-click on the icon for your CD/DVD drive and choose Open. The rest of the steps will still work.
  3. A window for the CD drive will open. You will use the CD drive window later, so don’t close it. Either Minimize it or move it out of the way if you need to.
  4. Open the folder that has the files you want to copy. If you are just going to copy some files you’ve made, look in My Documents. If you want to copy photos, open My Documents | My Pictures or wherever your photos are.

  5. If you are using photos, try changing your view to Filmstrip, so you can preview each photo. The photos will be listed along the bottom of the screen and previewed above them. Single-click on each photo to preview, or use the left and right arrow keys to move from photo to photo.
  6. When you see a photo you want to put on the CD, go to the Picture Tasks area on the left, and click on Copy to CD. If you want all the photos, pushing Ctrl + A will select all the photos you see, then click Copy to CD. (When the photos are selected, there will be a blue outline around each one in the row of photos.)
  7. If you are using files that aren’t photos it’s a little different. Click the file to copy, then in File and Folder Tasks, click Copy this file. In the screen that pops up, choose your CD drive, then click copy.

  8. Once you have selected the files you want copied to the CD, you’re ready to burn the CD. Go back to the CD window that you started with. You should see icons for all the files you wanted to copy.
  9. Now you’re ready for the last step: in the CD Writing Tasks, click Write these files to CD.


  10. The Welcome to the CD Writing Wizard comes onscreen. There is an area for CD name, that probably shows the current date. If you want to use the date, that’s fine, if you want to put in another name, like 2008 photos, select and delete the date text and type in your own.
  11. Click Next. The computer should start burning the CD, and show you an estimated time for it.
  12. Once it’s done, most computers will eject the CD automatically. A box about Completing the CD Writing Wizard will appear, and give you the option of creating another CD with the same files or just click Finish. Please choose Finish.
  13. That’s it, you’ve burned files on a CD. If you put the CD back into the computer to check it, the little box you saw at the beginning of this will come up and ask what you want to do. (Note that the top of the box shows the CD name.) If you choose View Slideshow, it will automatically show all the pictures full screen, one after the other.

A CD can hold a lot of files – these directions are not for the fastest way to copy lots of files, but to help you get used to the general process. For more information see:

Renaming Batches of Files
How to Create Folders and Organize Files
Renaming Files and Naming Tips

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  1. 22 Responses to “Practice: How to Copy Your Photos to a CD”

  2. By Loren on Jan 9, 2010 | Reply

    Hello Lee – my version of Word 2007 (running in XP) does have the “Up one Level” button. An alternate way is to use the keyboard shortcut Alt+2 while in the Open or Save boxes.
    Hope that helps!

  3. By Lee on Jan 8, 2010 | Reply

    Hello, Loren
    You certainly have an interesting resume. Right now my question is more practical….I have been using folders to put my materials in a tree-shaped structure. Often I need to go back one level. In the old Word there was a little up arrow, but I don’t see anything like it in Word 2007. Is there a way to do that. By the way, bettyann (up above) is 70 but I am 76. Still learning.Thanks!

  4. By Kate on Dec 20, 2009 | Reply

    hi,
    my name is kate- when i burn the cd all the above is right! but when i put it in to view my disc is comes up blank disk and the whole process of above must be done!
    please help!

  5. By saloua on Nov 15, 2009 | Reply

    ed in hello may name is saloua thanks you for you help help staring at me ijust typed in how to thanls you for all the great simple axeplande and dris badre student is fifteen

  6. By Richard on Sep 7, 2009 | Reply

    Everything seems to go just fine–until the very last step. For some reason, I’m unable to open anything to see what I’ve burned. I don’t even see file icons–yet all indications are that the disc was copied. Where is the “View Slideshow” option! Don’t see that anywhere!!

  7. By Rhoda Lovdal on Jun 13, 2009 | Reply

    When I finished burning the CD and put the CD back to see the pictures, they show up as icons and I have to click each one to see the picture.

  8. By Catherine on Jun 12, 2009 | Reply

    Dear Loren,
    When I open My Computer and right-click on the icon for the CD/DVD drive and choose Open, this is what happens. A window pops out and says (my cd drive is H )

    H:\ is not accessible.
    Incorrect function.
    My H drive is functioning properly and can read cd and dvd. Please advise

  9. By Martha Ives on May 17, 2009 | Reply

    when I go to Picture Task after selecting the photos I want to copy, I do not have “copy to CD.”

  10. By Bev on May 16, 2009 | Reply

    I am having a problem with viewing my CD once I have it burned. When I go in to view my pictures on my laptop they are in order but when we tried to watch the CD on our VCR they are all out of order . I have numbered them and there’s no problem when viewing on my laptop – just on the VCR – Can you help?

  11. By immobilie on Mar 13, 2009 | Reply

    Sehr wertvolle Informationen! Empfehlen!

  12. By Willie on Mar 11, 2009 | Reply

    when I rearrange order of pictures into a new folder and then burn a cd from that folder the pictures a back in the original order on the cd.
    What am I doing wrong?

  13. By Loren on Mar 7, 2009 | Reply

    Hi Charles – you make an excellent point. I will amend the directions to include that. Thanks for pointing it out!

  14. By Charles on Mar 7, 2009 | Reply

    Hi:

    I followed your example, but it would have been better if you also added a solution for “what happens if the CD Drive does not pop up then what”. You cannot assume taht all comouters are set up to automatically bring a message like this. So now I am stuck. What do I do if this does not happen.

    Please help.

    Charles

  15. By Loren on Feb 18, 2009 | Reply

    Hi Carolyn – do you mean that when you look at the files on the burned CD they are not listed in the right order? Or that they are out of order while you are adding them to the CD before burning?
    If it’s after the CD is burned, in Windows, right-click anywhere in the background and choose Arrange Icons By, then choose Name.
    If you’re copying to the CD thorough a window, you could try the same thing.
    Hope that I understood your question correctly, post back if I didn’t. Thanks and good luck!

  16. By Carolyn on Feb 17, 2009 | Reply

    Loren, Your tutorial is excellent! My QUESTION is: I’ve rearranged the pictures on my computer in the order in which they were taken; AND, I’ve renamed them to indicate the subject of the picture. When I copy them to the CD, it rearranges them alphabetically. How can I get them to copy in the order I want? I have tried putting numbers, starting with 001, in front of each label–that helps but many pictures are still out of sequence. Do you have a solution? I use Windoews XP.

  17. By Loren on Jan 18, 2009 | Reply

    Hi Joanne – it could be anything from a problem with Windows to a physical problem with the CD drive. I’d have to recommend you Google you the error message, hopefully that will lead you to an answer.
    Good luck!

  18. By Joanne on Jan 18, 2009 | Reply

    I am unable to transfer photos from my documents to a cd, the comment is d drive not accessable, what now???

  19. By Karen on Dec 30, 2008 | Reply

    Hi I am wondering what to do to find all my pictures in my computer to copy to cd You see I have three different users name on my computer and they all have pictures and I think maybe some are the same .. So I was wondering if there was a way to search all the picturs together from all three users name so I just make one copy of the picture

  20. By Loren on Dec 23, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Kathy – one way to do this, after using select all, is to deselect some pictures. In XP, you can see the total MB of what’s selected in the bottom right of the window. What you want to do is hold Ctrl and click on photos one-by-one to deselect them. You should see the MB number changing while you do this, so you know when you have deselected enough.
    Another option is to open a window for the CD you want to make, and drag photos into that window until you reach 700MB.
    Good luck!

  21. By Kathy on Dec 18, 2008 | Reply

    when you want to copy pictures to a cd 723mb & it will only hold 700, after you “select all” how do you get rid of the 23mb cd won’t hold?

  22. By Loren on Aug 14, 2008 | Reply

    Hi BettyAnn – I’m very happy hear the article was helpful to you. If there is anything else you would be interested in seeing articles on, feel free to leave a comment about it.
    Good luck with your future computer projects!

  23. By bettyann smith on Aug 14, 2008 | Reply

    Thank you for your help. I will be 70 in January. I am good at keyboard, BUT kinda new
    to a lot of Computer stuff. But, where there is a will, there is a way.
    I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw your
    help staring at me. I just typed in How to
    copy My Document photos to a CD. Thank you for all the great simple explanations.

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