1. What is CD burning ?

When you burn a CD you write data to a blank CD.
The process involves a laser making little holes in a layer on the CD; this is where the concept of "burning" comes from.


2. What do I need to burn CD's ?

You need a CD burner, commonly known as a CD Writer.
You also will need software to enable the CD Writer to write data to the CD.
Commonly you will receive some software when you buy your CD Writer.
Good and often used programs are Easy CD Creator, Nero Burning ROM and CDRwin.
There're many others but these 3 are commonly used, especially by the people in alt.2600.warez.
A good software tool to have is WinImage which is able to make ISO's, among other things,
but also to extract ISO and BIN/CUE files in pretty much the same way one extracts zip or rar archives.
You will need blank CD's. You cannot use your old shareware CD's for instance; they cannot be written on (anymore).


3. Can I use any CD for burning ?

No. You have to use blank CD's meant to be written to. These are called CD-R's or Recordable CD's.
Currently they come in the sizes of 640MB (or 74 minutes) and 700 MB (or 80 minutes).
If your CD Writer supports it you can also use Rewritable CD's (CD-RW).
These CD's are slightly more expensive than regular recordable CD's but can be erased an written to again.
They are often used for backup purposes or to check if something, when written to CD, would work.
Note: most CD-ROM's, the players that can only read a CD, are not able to read a rewriteable CD.
Note: most CD players (ie for audio) are not able to play music tracks from a rewriteable CD.


4. What is a CD image

A CD image is a track by track, sector by sector exact copy of a CD.
The image contains everything on the CD - not only the files you can see and can normally copy and paste anywhere
and anyway you want but also the File Allocation Table.
The way a CD image is written, the file type it is put into, often determines its usefulness.
Some CD image types are known not to work well with so-called mixed mode CD's; those are CD's that contain not only data but also audio and/or video.
Some CD image file types are known only to one program, others to some and yet again others to all programs.


5. What CD image type is best used

Defintely ISO and BIN/CUE.
ISO will copy correctly almost anything that contains data.
BIN/CUE should be used for CD's that contain both data and audio and/or video.
BIN/CUE should almost always be used for game CD's that you want to copy.


6. About ISO

This is a standardized file system for making CD images.
Almost any CD burning program known can read it and write it to a CD.
Not all programs are able to read a CD and make an ISO out of it, however.
ISO's can be read by other computer systems as well.
You can use WinImage to extract the ISO to see if the software will run from hard disk.
You can convert the ISO to a virtual CD using a freeware utility called ISO2FCD.
You might want to burn the ISO onto a blank CD. Use Easy CD Creator, Nero, or CDRWin.

When you extract an ISO using WinImage the program might not work if it is programmed to check for a CD.
You can try looking for a CD crack at AstaLaVista or in case of a game at GameCopyWorld.
Also consider using Virtual CD 2000 and higher version to make a virtual CD out of your ISO.
That will take care of the CD check.

Also, when extracted, the program might report errors concerning files or folders not found.
In this case try extracting the ISO to the root folder.
To extract an ISO start WinImage. Click on Open.
In the file type box either select ISO, or All Types. Browse to your ISO file and click on it.
To extract choose Image, Extract and specify the location where you want the data to be extracted to.
To extract one file, highlight the file and choose extract.
NOTE: most programs stored on a CD will work when extracted from the ISO to any place on your hard disk.
Some programs however expect that the original file structure of the CD is intact.
This means that when Autorun.exe lived in the root folder
(the place where you see files right away when you click on any drive is called the root) it expects to be there now as well.
If a program extracted from a CD image doesn't work, always try it in a root folder on your hard disk.


7. About BIN/CUE

A proprietary CD image file system used by CDRwin.
It is known to be extremely accurate when making copies of CD's that are mixed mode; CD's that contain data as well as audio and/or video.
The BIN file holds the actual CD image and, in and by itself, can also be burned to CD using Nero Burning ROM.
The CUE file tells cdrwin at what time it needs to burn a mixed mode file( data and music), a data file, or a music file.

IMPORTANT NOTE: the CUE file contains file paths that might NOT be accurate to YOUR setup.
Always, always, always open the CUE file in Notepad, check the file paths and where needed edit them!

Example of a CUE file:
FILE "C:\MYDATA.ISO" BINARY <----You need to edit what's in parenthesis( parenthesis depend on your cdrwin version)
TRACK 01 MODE1/2048
INDEX 01 00:00:00
POSTGAP 00:02:00
FILE "C:\MYAUDIO.WAV" WAVE <----Thats right, same thing here edit what's in parenthesis.
TRACK 02 AUDIO
PREGAP 00:02:00
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 05:50:65
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 09:47:50

Alternatively you can extract the BIN file using WinImage.
When you extract a BIN using WinImage the program might not work if it is programmed to check for a CD.
You can try looking for a CD crack at astalavista or in case of a game at gamecopyworld.

Also, when extracted, the program might report errors concerning files or folders not found.
In this case try extracting the BIN to the root folder.
To extract a BIN start WinImage. Click on Open. In the file type box either select All Types.
Browse to your BIN file and click on it. To extract choose Image, Extract and specify the location where you want the data to be extracted to.
To extract one file, highlight the file and choose extract.


8. About NRG

It is another proprietary standard devised by the guys at Nero to burn CD's.
It is also puts a smaller boot record than the others, and is capable of overburning(burning more data to a cd than the typical 650megs or 74 minutes).
Unfortunately your cd burner has to support the feature as well as the media(cdr) that you buy.
NOTE: Nero Burning ROM and Adaptec's Direct CD will not work together. If you install one, you cannot have the other one installed.
If you want the features of DirectCD the packet writing software to use with Nero is InCD ( 98-NT ) comes on the Nero CD.
(info courtesy of PairAdux)


9. About CDI

This is a Paddus Disk Juggler image file


10. About GCD

This is a Prassi CD Rep Professional image file


11. About CIF

This is a Easy CD Creator image file. Notoriously bad for mixed mode CD's.