How to copy a CD with only one drive

Use Copy disc in Burn by Zaweba. With a single drive, Burn reads your CD to a temporary image on the PC, then asks you to take it out and put in a blank. It burns the copy, checks it, and then deletes the temporary image or keeps it if you'd like. It works for your own data discs and audio CDs.

Most PCs have only one disc drive, if any, so drive-to-drive copying isn't an option. Going via an image solves that neatly.

The copy, from first disc to last

Put the disc you want to copy in the drive and open Copy disc. Burn reads the whole disc into a temporary image. When it's finished, it asks you to insert a blank disc. Swap them, using the Eject button in the status bar or Disc > Eject if the tray doesn't open by itself. Burn writes the copy and then checks it.

At the end, choose whether to delete the temporary image or keep it. Keeping it is handy if you want more copies later, or as a backup of the disc on your PC.

Making several copies

Copy disc can make up to 50 copies, each one checked. That's useful for a club newsletter disc, a set of family photos for relatives, or a demo CD of your own music. You read the original once and then feed in blanks as Burn asks for them. Progress shows on the taskbar, and a chime tells you when each job finishes.

When the original won't read

Reads are plain, with three tries. If part of the disc still can't be read after that, the job stops with a clear message that the disc can't be read in full, so it can't be copied. Burn won't make a copy with silent holes in it. Cleaning the disc and trying again, or trying another drive, may help.

A temporary image needs space on your PC, roughly the size of the disc being copied. A CD needs little, but if you copy larger data discs, make sure the drive Burn saves to has room before you start, so the job doesn't stop part way through the read.

What Burn will and won't copy

Copy disc is for your own data discs and audio CDs. Burn never works around copy protection and includes no code to do so. It reads exactly what the drive returns, so protected discs, such as most film DVDs, can't be copied.

If you have two drives, Burn can copy via an image or straight from drive to drive. And if you'd rather keep the disc as a file, Images > Read disc to image reads a data disc to an ISO and records its SHA-256, which you can burn later with Burn image or mount as a drive.

Blank discs vary. Use the same type as the original where you can, a CD-R for a CD, and check with Tools > Drive information that your drive writes that type. With checking after burning on, you'll know each copy came out right before it leaves your hands.