As a technology enthusiast, I am often asked how to quickly burn or rip CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs for free. Most people have heard of software like Roxio, Sonic, or Nero, but none of them are free, and they tend to be so overwhelmed with additional features that your computer actually starts to run much slower after installing them! Fortunately, I spend a lot of time trying to find free tools and utilities that do the same thing, but without any bullshit.
One really easy-to-use, full-featured and low-resource program that I use to burn CDs and DVDs is ImgBurn ImgBurn has several “modes” that make it very user friendly: read, build, write, check, and discover. The only thing you need to pay attention to with ImgBurn is that when you install it, you will see two places where you will be prompted to install the associated software. You must click Custom Installation and then remember to uncheck the box to install the software.
In read mode, you can insert the disc into your CD / DVD drive and copy it to an image file on your computer. This is a great way to back up any software CDs you may have on hand, such as a Windows operating system CD, Microsoft Office CDs, or other important software. If you ever lose these discs, that’s fine, because you can simply use ImgBurn in burn mode to burn the image back to a new CD / DVD. The great thing about ImgBurn is that it even supports Blu-ray!
The new version of ImgBurn has a simple start screen that lists all the main functions with a couple of buttons. If you are familiar with the program and just want to switch to a specific mode, tap Mode at the top and then select the mode you want.
As you can see from the picture below, I am currently in reading mode. I put a DVD movie in my drive and ImgBurn automatically chooses the destination based on which disc has the most free hard drive space and file type, in this case ISO. To start copying, click on the CD image with the green-blue arrow at the bottom.
Once you have the image file saved on your computer, you can record any number of copies of it by going into record mode. Here you select the image file, whether you want to check it after recording, and the number of copies. Some of the advanced features are the fact that ImgBurn supports Unicode file and folder names, so you won’t have problems with international character sets or long file names. As you can see below, the source is now the ISO image and the destination is the CD / DVD drive.
ImgBurn also supports a number of image formats other than ISO it can burn, including BIN, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, MDS, NRG, and PDI. ImgBurn also supports dual layer DVDs.
Now you may be asking, “Well, I can convert my CDs and DVDs to backup images and burn the images to CD / DVD, but what if I just want files from my computer? “Then you go into build mode. Build mode allows you to simply select files and folders from your computer to burn to disk. To add files or folders, use the little buttons under the green + sign. By default, files are burned to an ISO image, but you can change the output to DVD drive by clicking the small toggle output button in the lower left corner.
After adding files and folders, you need to click the small calculator button in the lower right corner to calculate the amount of space that will be used on CD / DVD.ImgBurn also has many advanced options for those who want more than just the basics, but otherwise ready to use right out of the box.It works on almost all versions of Windows from Windows 95 to Windows 8 (including all 64 -bit versions).
ImgBurn is handy, lightweight and easy to use, so check it out if you get sick of Roxio, Sonic and Nero always crashes or eats resources. knitted software mentioned above, the program works great. Enjoy!
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