Hi you gorgeous Cuties! I am wanting to back up my embroidery designs to DVD's. Do I need a special kind to download the files to? I purchased the memorex dvd-r's but it won't let me copy the files to them. Not sure what to do now.

i would put them on dvds or cds i brought a exturnel hard drive was great for down loading designs on till i drop it lost all my 12 yrs of designs

I would not trust a memory stick with my designs. I use them, but I always back my designs up to a disk also. Too much time and money in them to lose. I back them up to disk every month of so and to the stick in between.

I use regular CDs R my pc is Vista I have some in memory sticks but I like CD better I can write what I have in it.

I can only talk for XP and Vista. Both systems have cd burning capability right on the machine. Insert a blank cd and a menu box will come up for options, after you choose make a cd, the window will come up for you to copy to/or drag your files to it. XP will walk you through it with a wizard, and with Vista, just right click on the drive in the explorer panel on the left, choose close session, and it's done.
If you want a special software to work with, google for free cd making software, there are a lot out there.
I make 2 cd's of my files, after I make sure they work, I delete the original, which I had saved on a flash drive until I had close to the 700mb they hold. Then I put a copy of that on my external hard drive. Overkill? Not when it took so long to find or buy and sort what I have.
I have yet to try DVD's. But if I have problems, I use google a lot-I would try, for your problem, to type in I can't copy files to my dvd's and see what answers you get.
Jo

You have to have a program on your computer that will burn the designs to CD or DVD. I use Roxio, but there are many of these. If your computer is new, Windows has a burning utility built in. Imgburn is a free utility. Link below to download it.

You need to copy your files to a CD. Cd's are for data, music,, etc. and since your emb files are data it should copy on it. Dvd's are for "motion" pictures, like home movies. Try a CD, that is what I use and I have a program called Sonic on my computer.It takes you step by step. If you have Sonic and need help PM me. I will try to help, if I can. I don't know anything about Nero, though.

How are you trying to copy data to them?

I have an external hard drive and i store all my designs on this. If the computer crashes you lose nothing. I love it!! I don't remember which website it was but they had a free embroidery folder system that i downloaded to the external hard drive. Now all my designs are categorized and when i need something i can find it very quickly and easily.!!!

Windows computers have this software already installed. All you need to do is open your embroidery files folder and in a seperate window open your DVD-R drive. Then drag files to the DVD-R or copy and paste. Good luck and happy sewing.

My computer asks for writable disks when I want to copy my design files. I hope I am doing it the right way. Thanks for bringing up this question, that may well be on a lot of Cutie's minds. We all are aware of how precious our designs are and hope to store them successfully. ****

I had all my designs (200,000 plus) stored on a 32gb USB stick, with a 32gb back up stick that I had not backed up for 2 weeks. I broke the stick! I didn't know that could happen! I had to scurry to find most of the purchased designs and free ones that were still available. I got most of them. I went out and bought an external hard drive for back up and have been happy with it. It was about $50 in USA. I never keep designs on the computer, and I try to remember to back up every few days. This gives me a little piece of mind! I tried the CD route early on, but I hated having to go through several cd's to find my designs. External hard drive works for me. Linda

2 comments

by gerryb 31 Jan 2012

I, too, like the hard drive with a second back up on flash drives...one for alphas & one for everything else.

by cfidl 31 Jan 2012

Best idea, thanks!

Hi, its me again...

I asked my husband about it and he said to ask you what your OS (operating system) you're using... Vista? Windows7? Have you made DVDs before on your computer?

You'd be better served if you bought a 16Gb memory stick to save your files on. I'm not sure where you are on the planet, but I just bought a couple of 16Gb memory sticks at STAPLES the other day and they were less than $20 each.

2 comments

by susiesembroidery 04 Feb 2012

This seems to be a better option than the disk. Thanks v.m. I hope to afford a external hard drive soon, if my market day goes well at the end of the month. Thanks for all the advice I also received during this discussion. It is truly appreciated. Al I know to do I had to learn by myself, with a little help from my BIL in Pretoria, by telephone.

by snowbird42 04 Feb 2012

only problem with a memory stick they can fail and with a dvd you have ahard copy...but yes do both good insurance...soozie

Is there a difference between saving data on a DVDR or CD-rom? Are they benefits to DVD?

2 comments

by pcteddyb 31 Jan 2012

DVD holds much more data than a CD.

by cfidl 31 Jan 2012

I understand. thanks

If you have Windows 7 you can use Explorer to copy the files from your hard disk to DVD-R. I do it easily, just place the DVD-R in my computer's DVD player/writer and Explorer asks you to select between two choices, I always choose the one that copies files onto the DVD disk like it were a memory stick which allows to add and delete files as you please. I don't need Nero or other similar programs anymore. Hugs, Lidia

How are you trying to copy data to them? Are you trying to copy directly to them (in Explorer)? If so, that would be the issue - DVD-R are not able to do it that way - you must use special software that should be on your computer to copy the data. The software that came with my computer is CyberLink DVD Suite = but every computer could be different so you may need to look for something that has a name like a DVD maker or backup maker, etc. Hope this Helps.

The best DVD's to use for storing embroidery designs are RE-WRITABLE but they need to be formatted to store data, so you need to have a program such as Nero, with INCD, which is the module Nero uses to format re-writable discs.

Most computers come with some form of Nero and usually the INCD module is on the program disc, you just need to activate it, then when you open Nero you will see the EXTRA feature "Format re-writable disc"
I hope this helps. Hugs and roses, Meganne

8 comments

by mjjust2ofus 31 Jan 2012

Can I convert the files with Embird?

by mops 31 Jan 2012

Whether you convert files in Embird or any other software, you'll still need Nero or a similar programme to write files to a CD or DVD.

by sewbadly 31 Jan 2012

What an interesting topic for this site.
My question is how to take a previously written DVD-R disc and erase it without reformatting for data. I want to use my rewritable DVD for another movie but can not figure how to erase it. Thanks.

by marcellelewis 31 Jan 2012

You would need a DVD-RW disc for that.

by sewbadly 31 Jan 2012

That is what I have. How can I erase it and keep the same format I have? thanks

by marcellelewis 31 Jan 2012

I thought you meant you had DVD-R. For DVD-RW I use Roxio by Sonic Solutions. Under tools there is an option to erase a CD or DVD. Then you can reuse it. It is an excellent program and very easy to use. I have tried others that I did not like at all. I had Nero at one time and it was free. I didn't like it at all and only use Roxio now.

Marcelle

by marcellelewis 31 Jan 2012

I had Nero at one time and it was free. I didn't like it at all and only use Roxio now.

Marcelle

by sewbadly 01 Feb 2012

Many thanks. I will look into that.