Using Nero

[Fraser]

I have a disc with 2 tracks and 2 sessions. I want to change nothing already written. I want to add more files and directories. Should I use Neros option 'Continue with an existing data CD (multisession)'? It asks me to select a session. If I select session 2 it then says so many files are added and replaced. I then close the window. Do I need to close session 2 before starting a new session?

[confus-ed]

If you close the last session then you'll finalise it & won't be able to write more ..

..A session is a recorded segment that may contain one or more tracks of any type. The CD recorder doesn't have to write the entire session at once, but the last session on a disc must be "closed" before a standard audio CD or CD-ROM player will recognize it. Additional sessions can be added until the *disc* is closed or there's no space left.

Multisession writing was first used on PhotoCD discs, to allow additional pictures to be appended. Today it's most often used with "linked" multisession discs, and occasionally for CD-Extra discs. These require a bit more explanation.

When you put a data CD into your CD-ROM drive, the OS finds the last session on the disc and reads the directory from it. (Well, that's how it's supposed to work. Depending on your operating system and CD-ROM drive, you may get different results.) If the CD is ISO-9660 format - which it almost certainly is unless it's a Macintosh CD written in HFS - the directory entries can point at any file on the CD, no matter which session it was written in.

Most of the popular CD creation programs allow you to "link" one or more earlier sessions to the session currently being burned. This allows the files from the previous sessions to appear in the last session without taking up any additional space on the CD (except for the directory entry). You can also "remove" or "replace" files, by putting the new version into the last session, and not including a link to the older version.

In contrast, when you put an audio CD into a typical CD player, it only looks at the first session. For this reason, multisession writes don't work for audio CDs ..

So I think that means 'append' to last session always (unless you for whatever reason don't want some of the other sessions)

[Fraser]

I used a CD format once where you only have to drag and drop onto the disc to record. I think it is called a UDF format. It needs a Windows driver. I think it was with Roxio easy cd creator? The latest one appears to be bundled with stuff I don't want.

This file updating is not what I want.

[confus-ed]

I used a CD format once where you only have to drag and drop onto the disc to record. I think it is called a UDF format. It needs a Windows driver. I think it was with Roxio easy cd creator? The latest one appears to be bundled with stuff I don't want.

This file updating is not what I want.

Oooo ! that makes me confus-ed or more so, should I say ..

If you were/are using 'packet writing' to create this disk, {where you can drag & drop like its a harddrive, s/w for nero is something called 'in-cd' }, you ought to be able to download that 'bit' from the nero website, at least as a trial ..

UDF is

ISO 9660 have been used as the main CD format for many years now. Most of the CD nowsdays still use this format, the benefit of this format is that it is readable by all CD drive or CD player, and can be shared between PC and MAC.

Universal Disk Format (UDF) is a newer file system for CD and DVDdeveloped and managed by the Optical Storage Technology Association as the successor to the ISO 9660 standard. UDF overcomes limitations of ISO 9660 and redirectors such as CDFS. UDF is used to ensure compatibility across platforms, as well as among various CD and DVD applications. UDF is required for DVDs, and is used by DVD to contain MPEG audio/video streams, UDF is also used by CD-R and CD-RW in a process called packet writing that makes CD writing more efficient in terms of the time and disk space required

& there's loads of versions ! so I dunno if this disk was created with roxio whether you are gonna be able to do this sucessfully - you can try copying all your stuff to nero's virtual drive & trying it there so you won't make 'a muck' of what you have.

[Fraser]

It not a UDF format disc.

It seems that Nero does not have the option to turn off importing a previous session.

CDRWIN V3.6 update says:
Support for "importing" previous sessions from an ISO9660 disc (for creating true multisession discs).

So I can have a stack of different volumes or update files in a previous volume. I'll have a play about with a CDRW.

[Fraser]

I have learned more about using Nero and discovered the Wizard was turned on. The manual section on 'Multisession CD for nonlinked files' was what I wanted to know.