WIX Archives

Not True

Posted by AndyG on Thu Jun 19, 2003 03:00:01 PM

In reply top Re: Lots more answers! posted by Brian on Thu Jun 19, 2003 02:24:09 PM

Sorry Brian not correct.

You CAN copy files to a cd-r as if it was any other type of media or drive. You can even make directories, rename them, copy files to them, even copy the same file again to the same place with the same name if you wish. (you will get a standard overwrite warning!) In that case the file you see listed in the directory will be the most recent. It hasn't in fact been physically 'overwritten' as may be the case on a hard disc or a CD-RW typically (BTW: hard discs don't necessarily overwrite the same sectors as previously occupied by a file, they just find some convenient free space, perhaps uncontiguous as well, and write the replacement file there, but marking the old file in the FAT so that its space can be overwritten in future if required) , it just writes the new file to an unused part of the cd-r marking the sectors containing the old file so that they are no longer read.

If you try this out by copying a 1 meg file for example to a cd-r then 'overwrite' it with a newer version of exactly the same size, the available space left on the cd-r should no longer be the same, it should indicate that there is approx. 1 meg less space even though the file you just copied is the same.

Cd-r's can be very flexible too, you don't need to splash out on cd-rw's.

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