PC Hell: Free CD Burning Software

CD Burning or CD Writing software is essential for anyone wanting to backup their computer data to CD or DVD. The software usually allow you to save data on CD or DVD, as well as creating audio CD's from MP3, WAV, WMA, and other types of files.

Windows XP comes with built-in software to burn to CDs or DVDs, but the features are limited. So in many cases, computer owners have other software they use to burn CDs. Most of the time, this software is either preloaded on a computer by the manufacturer or comes with the new CD-RW or DVD-RW drive you've purchased.

What happens when you have reformatted your computer and don't have the original disks to reinstall the software? Are you stuck with just using the Windows XP built-in software? The answer is no. There are several good packages out there to choose from. Most of these work on Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP.

One of the best free CD burning utilities is CDBurnerXP. Its from a swedish development team and has great features and an easy to use interface similar to Roxio and Nero. The feature list is long, and although it doesnt burn to double-layer DVD's yet, it will in the future. Here are some of its features.

Express Burn is another great free alternative to the commercial CD and DVD burning packages on the market. The Australian company behind Express Burn distributes it free in the hopes that you will upgrade to Express Burn Plus. The Plus version adds the ability to create and record ISO images and, for audio CD, support for many more file formats (the basic version only supports wav and mp3). Although in most cases, the free version does an outstanding job for the average person.

Deep Burner is one of my favorite free CD burning programs. Easy to use and it just works. It features the ability to data CDs and DVDs, audio CDs, and create and burn ISOs. The paid version will do even more, but for most applications the free version will do.

Burn4Free is a fourth alternative that definitely deserves a look. Burn4Free is ad supported so you get some advertising throughout the program. It includes a Burn4Free toolbar and has some files that may be seen as suspicious by several antispyware programs. Its features include

There are many other free alternatives to the commercial versions of Roxio and Nero, however I do like CD Burner XP and its features, even though you can't burn ISO files yet.

Roxio CD Creator and related titles have been around for a long time, they are stable and easy to use, definitely a good choice.

Nero is another great commercial program with all the features you need to burn CDs, DVDs, ISOs, audio, and more.

Ok, so you can view DVD's on your computer, but what you really want is to backup the DVDs in case of disaster. There is software still out there that allows you to do this, one of the most popular is DVD-Cloner III.

This software will allow the user to make Perfect 1:1 copies with no watermark and no warning screen. You can also make unlimited copies from a copy. AND there is a 30 day money back warranty. Check it out for yourself.