What Can I Do with DirectCD?

DirectCD lets you write files directly to a CD-Recordable (CD-R) or CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) disc on your Windows^® 95/98 or Windows NT^® computer, in much the same way as you write files to a floppy diskette or a removable media drive. With DirectCD you can read and write files directly to a disc with any software application that can read and write to a drive letter. Some examples include:

• Software applications such as Microsoft^® Word, when you use the Save or Save As commands
• Windows Explorer, when you drag and drop files
• Windows 95/98/NT, when you use the Send To command

DirectCD includes a wizard that guides you step-by-step through the process of preparing and ejecting CD-R and CD-RW discs.

Starting DirectCD

There are several ways to start DirectCD. Try one of the following:

• After starting up your computer, insert a blank CD-R or CD-RW disc in the drive. After a few seconds, a screen should appear asking you to “Please select the type of CD you wish to create.” Select the first option, Click here to create a data CD. If this screen doesn’t appear, try the next method.
• Double click the CD icon on the Windows taskbar (in the lower right corner of your screen).
• Click the Start button located on the left side of the taskbar. Select Programs, point to Iomega ZipCD and select DirectCD.

Writing Data to a CD for the First Time

Follow these steps to format a CD so you can write data to it:

Note: If you started DirectCD by selecting the first option from the menu screen, begin with Step 3.

1. Start DirectCD as described in the previous section. The DirectCD Wizard window appears.
2. Read the text in the Welcome window and click Next. The Format Disc window appears.
3. In the Format Disc window, click Next to continue. (If you are formatting a CD-RW disc that was formatted previously, select either Quick format or Full format before you do this.) The Name Your Disc window appears.
4. Type a disc name of up to 11 characters.
5. Click Finish.
   Disk formatting begins. The DirectCD Disc Ready window appears when the formatting is complete.
6. Click OK.

The DirectCD disc is now ready for you to write information directly to it.

Note: Formatted CD-RW discs have about 530 MBytes of available space; formatted CD-R discs can store up to about 620 MBytes of data. Formatting CD-RW discs may take up to 90 minutes. Once the formatting process is started, it cannot be cancelled.

Writing Data to a DirectCD Disc

Once your CD is formatted as a DirectCD disc, you can write data to it in several different ways:

• Drag and drop files from Windows Explorer onto the CD-R or CD-RW drive icon.
• Select Save As from a Windows 95/98/NT application File menu and select the drive letter of your CD-R or CD-RW drive.
• Use the Send To command.
• Use MS-DOS command prompts from a DOS window in Windows 95/98/NT.

Ejecting a DirectCD Disc

DirectCD gives you various formatting options when you eject a DirectCD disc from the CD-R or CD-RW drive. The options depend on what kind of disc is in the drive and how you plan to use the disc. To eject a DirectCD disc, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the CD icon on the taskbar and select Eject from the drop-down list box. The Eject Disc screen appears.
   Note: You can also push the button to eject the disc.
2. Carefully read the text on the screen. If options are presented, select the option you want.
3. Click Finish to eject the DirectCD disc.

Important! If you use DirectCD with CD-RW discs and you want to read those discs on a MultiRead CD-ROM drive, you must first install UDF Reader software from Adaptec. The UDF Reader is included with DirectCD. You can also download it at no charge from Adaptec’s Web site.

Writing More Data to a DirectCD Disc

After you have formatted a blank CD for DirectCD use, you can keep adding data to the CD until it is full. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Insert the DirectCD formatted disc into your CD-R drive.
2. Wait for the DirectCD Disc Ready window to appear.
3. Click OK and continue writing more data to the disc.

Erasing a DirectCD Disc

Important! If you are using a CD-RW disc you can erase files from the disc and use the recovered space to write new files. However, if you “delete” files from a CD-R disc, the files become invisible to the file system (that is, they cannot be seen in Windows Explorer) but the space they occupy is not available for other files. Thus, “deleting” files from a CD-R disc does not increase the available free space on the disc.

To erase the contents on a DirectCD disc, follow these steps:

1. While in Windows Explorer, select the file(s) you want to erase.
2. Select Delete from the File menu, or press the Delete key.
3. Click Yes to confirm that you want to erase the files from the disc.

DirectCD erases the selected files.

Ejecting a CD-R Disc to Read on Another Computer (using the ISO 9660 format)

DirectCD can format a CD-R disc in a way that makes it readable by most standard CD-ROM drives in computers on which DirectCD is not installed. DirectCD does this by formatting the disc as an ISO 9660 closed session disc.

Note: This applies to only CD-R discs, not CD-RW discs.

To prepare a disc for use in standard CD-ROM drives, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the CD icon on the Windows taskbar.
2. Select Properties from the drop-down list box.
3. Click the DirectCD Wizard tab.
4. Select the Enable standard CD-ROM compatibility Eject option and click OK.
5. Right-click the CD icon on the Windows taskbar.
6. Select the appropriate option from the drop-down list box:
   – Eject, if the Eject Wizard is turned ON, or
   – Finalize, if the Eject Wizard is turned OFF
7. Select Organize the disc so that it can be read in most standard CD-ROM drives. . . and click Finish.

Note: ISO 9660 format information requires 22 MBytes of disc space for the first session and 13 MBytes for each additional session. Only CD-R discs can be closed as an ISO 9660 format.

DirectCD ejects the disc from the drive after closing it as an ISO 9660 format. If the Display Disc Ejected notification option is selected in DirectCD Wizard Options, the Disc Ejected message box appears.

Writing More Data to a CD-R ISO 9660 Formatted Disc

If you closed a DirectCD CD-R disc to ISO 9660 format—meaning that you selected the option to read the disc on a standard CD-ROM drive—you can still add more data to it by following these steps:

1. Insert the disc that was previously finalized to read on a standard CD-ROM drive into your CD-R drive.
2. Start DirectCD.
3. Click the Next button two times until you see the Make Disc Writable window.
4. Select I will be using DirectCD to read and write the CD through the drive letter associated with the CD-R drive and click Next.
5. Type the name you want to call your CD in the Name Your Disc window, using up to 11 characters.
6. Click Finish.

You can now copy more files to the disc using Windows Explorer or any Windows 95/98/NT application.

Ejecting a CD-R 9660 Formatted Disc when the Eject Wizard is Turned OFF

If you have chosen not to display the Eject Wizard, you can eject a disc by doing the following:

Note: this applies to ISO 9660 formatted CD-R discs only.

1. Right-click the CD-R drive icon on the taskbar.
2. Select one of the following options from the drop-down list box:

Eject—to keep the disc in the DirectCD format and continue reading and writing files directly to it

Finalize—to close the disc as an ISO 9660 format so the disc can be read on standard CD-ROM drives (applies to CD-R discs only)

Fixing an Unreadable Disc

DirectCD cannot read or format a disc that has an unreadable format. The disc may become unreadable if, for example, system problems occur while you are writing data to the disc.

DirectCD has a ScanDisc utility that may be able to make a CD-R disc readable again, allowing you to write to it and read from it.

Note: The ScanDisc utility works only with CD-R discs, not CD-RW discs.

To use ScanDisc, follow these steps:

1. Double-click the CD icon on the Windows taskbar. If the CD-R disc has an unreadable format, the ScanDisc window will appear.
2. Read the information in the window, then click the Start button.
   Note: You can click the Help button in the ScanDisc window to learn more about ScanDisc.
3. Wait while ScanDisc makes the CD-R disc readable.

Getting Help with DirectCD

For information about DirectCD, including DirectCD properties, refer to the DirectCD Online Help.

Try one of the following procedures to access the DirectCD Online Help

• Click the Start button, point to Programs, then to Iomega ZipCD and select Adaptec DirectCD Help, or:
• Click Help on any of the DirectCD Wizard windows.

For updated information contact the Iomega home page at http://www.iomega.com.