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I'm on Windows 7. I wanted to delete all the files from a RW-CD so that I could burn some different mp3 files onto it using Windows Media Player. I thought that the best way to do this would be to format the CD. I did this but when I tried to burn the mp3 files onto the CD using WMP it said 'First insert a blank disc', which I found puzzling because I thought that if you formatted a CD it would erase all material on it(?)
Anyway, I did then manage to erase the files using another method and I was then able to burn some mp3 files onto it. These took up about 59MB of space on the disk. But then when I dragged some more files to WMP and tried to burn them onto the disk it ejected the disk and told me to insert a blank disk. So it wouldn't let me add more files to the disk even though the capacity of the disk is 700MB and my files only took up 59MB. Can someone advise me on this please? Thanks.
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Sorry Ric, I've tried to redo the screenshots but I've only got Word Online and it won't seem to accept a document with the screenshots in from there.
You mentioned using iTunes to burn a disc so that it would be playable in VLC. Can you do that even though the tracks you want to burn haven't been downloaded through iTunes?
Thanks again.
Maybe try again and just take part of the screen with the snipping tool...
In the meantime, I found that using iTunes to burn a data disc did make everything playable in VLC (albeit with rather clumsy navigation...) but iTunes does close the disc so new files cannot be added to it.
One of the drawbacks of disc technology is there are so many variables - increasingly so because there's a lot of old/unwanted blank cd stock around - many of the optical drives are not of great quality, and WMP (in particular) is not really being properly maintained so errors crop up all the time!
Going back to the library thing - it's nothing to do with the disc. As an example - say you had downloaded a bunch of Mozart symphonies and they went into your music library as a compilation set.
If you then moved two symphonies into a new folder in the explorer library... that could damage the link to your WMP library, and they would not play - you'd get an error message saying "WMP cannot find the file - it may have been moved or deleted" It's been an ongoing reason for posts here over the years.
Thanks so much again Ric.
Probably down to my being quite dense in this area I didn't really understand the thing about the three-way link. I mean, if, after having burned tracks to a CD using WMP, you then played that CD in a stand-alone CD player (not mine, I know!) it would obviously play what was on the CD, but are you saying that if, after having moved some files on your PC, you then played it on that PC it wouldn't play as it had done on the stand-alone player? (And if by this stage you're tearing your hair out, Ric, please feel free to just move on!)
Regarding the CD-R disc, for some reason today when I tried it it played successfully, although the tracks didn't play in the order I had sent them to WMP or with the same titles. Here is a screenshot of the files as sent to WMP and then in the order in which they appeared in WMP. The order shown is the same but they don't play in that order and their titles have been changed.
Sorry, Ric. I've just tried to attach two screenshots and it told me that my message exceeded 60,000 characters. Apparently, it was 600,000+. I deleted one screenshot but it made no difference.
Thanks - too many late nights over Christmas!
The library corruption thing is nothing to do with the discs themselves - In W7 there is a three-way link between the WMP library, the 'Music' (explorer) library folder, and the file location (My Music) - if you move (or delete) items from the explorer library it can corrupt the WMP library database... so if you are moving items into new folders prior to burning it's safest to copy/paste them to a different location (such as Documents) first.
Thankfully this has been simplified in Windows 10!
Sorry to hear about the CD-R - that shouldn't make any difference... (That Beatles mp3 disc is on CD-R) Can you do a screenshot of the disc opened in the DVD/CD drive?
EDIT - just a thought on the options we have looked at so far... I'm going to try a test burn using iTunes to make a data disc and see if a) that will play in VLC and b) further files can be added in a new session. Not tried that using iTunes!
Ok Ric, sleep well.
