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Packet writing is almost as foolproof as a burnproof recording: You simply format the disc, write to it just like it's a huge floppy or Zip disk, and then finalize it for reading just like an ordinary CD-ROM or DVD-ROM.
Teamed with a CD-RW or DVD rewritable drive, packet-writing software can produce the nearly perfect, reusable, low-cost storage solution that everyone has been chasing since the first 1GB hard drive appeared way back when. Figure 1 illustrates Roxio Drag-to-Disc hard at work.
Figure 1: Drag-to-Disc is the key to oneness with your CD or DVD recorder.
 | Drag-to-Disc works behind the scenes, so you can forget that it's there. Just read, create, copy, and move files to your Drag-to-Disc disc in the same way that you use your hard drive or a floppy disk. You can save to the disc within your applications, drag and drop files, or use a file-management program like Windows Explorer. |
What makes Drag-to-Disc so hot? Here are the facts:
- You don't need to open any recording software ahead of time. Just drop a Drag-to-Disc disc in your drive, and everything's taken care of for you automatically.
- The Universal Disk Format (UDF) recording mode — also known as packet writing — that's used by Drag-to-Disc is almost as reliable and foolproof as burnproof recording. You can safely record data on a Drag-to-Disc disc while you're working in another application under Windows.
- You can add files at any time without creating a multisession disc.
- Drag-to-Disc works with CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R/W, DVD+R/W, and DVD-RAM discs.
- Although Drag-to-Disc itself is a Windows-only program, all popular operating systems can read a UDF disc produced by Drag-to-Disc.
Before you can use Drag-to-Disc, you have to format a disc before you can use it. Fortunately, the program automatically formats a disc for use with Drag-to-Disc when you drag files to it within Windows Explorer.
If your drive doesn't support this automatic formatting option (or if you want to use compression), you can follow these steps to manually format a blank disc in Windows XP:
1. Load a blank CD-R or CD-RW disc into your recorder.
2. Choose Start --> All Programs --> Roxio --> Drag-to-Disc to display the Drag-to-Disc window.
 | You can also double-click the Drag-to-Disc icon in the system tray to display this screen. |
3. Press Alt+F to display the Format Options dialog box.
4. In the Volume Label field, enter a descriptive volume name that has 11 characters or fewer.
You see this label displayed in the same places as your hard drive names, including Windows applications, within Windows Explorer, and within My Computer.
If you suddenly decide to rename your Drag-to-Disc disc later, click in the Drag-to-Disc window, press Alt+R, and then type the new name.
You can also choose to use compression on your Drag-to-Disc disc, which means that files can be reduced in size and you can pack additional stuff on the disc. Woohoo! Roxio says that the compression ranges from 1.5:1 to 3:1. As with a Zip archive, the compression that you achieve depends on the data that you're adding to the disc. Select this check box because the more space you have to add files, the better. However, this action can limit the number of computers that can read the disc. Don't use compression if you want any computer to be able to read the disc!
| To read a compressed Drag-to-Disc disc on another computer, you must have either Drag-to-Disc installed or you have to install UDF support (which is already included on most PCs that are running Windows 2000 and Windows XP). |
5. If you're formatting a rewritable disc, select the Format type by clicking the desired button.
Drag-to-Disc offers two types of formatting for rewritable media. Quick formatting takes only a few minutes, but you must have Drag-to-Disc installed to read the disc. Full formatting can take up to 90 minutes (depending on the speed of your drive and the capacity of the disc), but the resulting disc can be read on any PC that's running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, even if Drag-to-Disc is not installed on that machine.
6. Click the OK button to set the wheels in motion.
Drag-to-Disc displays the Disc Preparation dialog box while it's working. When the disc has been formatted, Drag-to-Disc displays the volume name in the Drag-to-Disc window.
Double-click My Computer, and you can see your new drive. Although it appears to be a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, it's ready to store data and read it. The Drag-to-Disc icon in the Windows system tray now sports a fashionable miniature red padlock, which tells you that you have loaded a Drag-to-Disc disc.
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