The drive status bar and Eject button in Burn by Zaweba
The status bar in Burn by Zaweba always shows your writer and the disc in it, with an Eject button, and F5 looks again for drives and discs.
At the bottom of the Burn by Zaweba window sits a status bar that is easy to overlook and useful all day. It shows the writer and the disc in it, and it has an Eject button.
Small as it is, it answers the two questions you ask most often with a disc program: is the right drive selected, and is there a disc in it.
What the status bar tells you
The status bar names your writer and describes the disc currently in it. Glance down before you start any job. If it shows the blank you expected, carry on. If it shows a disc you meant to take out, or no disc at all, you know before you waste time.
On a PC with more than one optical drive, this is also how you confirm which one Burn is working with.
Ejecting
Press the Eject button in the status bar to open the drive. The Disc menu has Eject too, if you prefer the menus. Either saves you leaning over to find the button on the drive, which on some laptops and external drives is tiny or hidden.
Ejecting from Burn is also a tidy habit at the end of a job. Once a burn and its check have finished, eject the disc, label it and put the next one in.
Looking for drives again
Drives and discs come and go. You might plug in an external writer after Burn is already open, or change discs in a way the drive doesn't report straight away. Press F5, or choose View, Look for drives again, and Burn scans again for drives and discs.
If a drive isn't showing, try F5 first. If it still doesn't appear, check that it is connected and powered, then look in Tools, Drive information, which lists optical drives and virtual drives.
The same status bar holds the Advanced mode switch. When it is on, new data discs open in a project window with every option. It is handy to have next to the drive details, since both are things you might want to change before starting a disc.
A typical moment
You finish a backup disc, the check passes and you press Eject. The status bar shows the drive with no disc. You put in the next blank, close the drive and watch the status bar describe the new disc. Then you carry on. It is a small loop, but repeated across a stack of discs it keeps every step certain.
Everyday tips
Before a backup of several discs, check the status bar between discs. When Burn asks for the next disc, a quick look confirms the new blank has been recognised.
When a job won't start, look at the status bar first. A disc that isn't blank, a disc of the wrong type, or no disc at all is the commonest reason, and the status bar shows each of these at a glance.
Keep the status bar in mind on shared PCs. If someone else has used the drive, the disc inside may not be the one you think.
Status bar and Drive information together
The status bar is the everyday view of the hardware, and Drive information is the detailed one. Between them, and with F5 to look again, Burn by Zaweba keeps you sure of which drive and which disc every job will use.
