This is a lot to ask but ...

[sillysalley]

How do you copy cd's?

I am no good with technical stuff, I can just abouts chat on mumsnet and buy on ebay and thats it.

But I REALLY need to copy 20 cd's for our school choir. I thought I was doing really well, by initially 'ripping' the cd onto my computer and then burning this onto a cd. The cd's play onto my computer but not a cd player

What am I doing wrong?

Please, I will be eternally greatful for anyone who can help, I need to have copied them for tomorrow

Anyone - please

That sounds right are you sure it's CDs and not DVDs you're using?

I can't believe I'm trying to answer a techy question.......

Thanks for your reply, yes it is cd's Im using, I was just wondering if I had to format anything IYKWIM

Thanks a lot for your reply

Oh. That's the limit of my techinical know how. Sorry.

one of our nicer cd players wont play copies - our cheapo crappy ones will play copies. not helpful am i ,

I am so not techy at all so may be just about to spout a load of nonsense...

I thought that cds made on a computer were of a specific type (no idea what though, but you know had a proper name, like those you see in technical specs of cd/dvd players)

so, the discs may be fine - it might be the cd player at fault, as it may not be of the right spec to play home made cds?

Coudl depend on what type of cd player you use too! One of mine plays home made cds, other doesnt.

What format was the song in when you copied it to cd?

Oh that's right the cd player has to be able to play them.

her might help scroll down

Your cd player needs to be able to play cdr's. I think.

Thank you so much guys, I shall keep trying

I did this once but had the setting wrong for burning cd's.
I had it set to burn it as an mp3 instead of an audio cd so it wouldn't play in anything and just sai d'no cd found'
Dh fixed it for me but I think the settings or tools or options in media player shoudl do it.

I never use the built in windows system and I'm not sure it would always work for making duplicates that need to be exactly the same.

imgburn is free and will copy a CD or DVD to a single file (an image) and then you just click that image file to burn CDs from it over and over. All exactly the same as the original.

You need to burn the file(s) as WMA or WAV. MP3 won't work. If you're starting with MP3 players you'll have to convert them first (pita, but there are downloadable progs to do it, some are even free!).

onager is right, audio CDs don't contain mp3, wav or any other type of files, so the only way to copy them is to make an exact digital copy of the data - that is what imgburn does. Note that some copy protection schemes will stop imgburn from working.

You do have the permission of all the owners of copyrighted material to do this do you?

No you can't burn as WAV or WMA, an audio CD is a very different beasty. You'll waste a cd if you try that

A very easy and quick fix is to download iTunes from Apple (you'll already have it if you use an iPod/iPhone). Import the cd. Copy the tracks to a new playlist. Right click on the playlist and select burn to cd (or something like that, I can check the exact option tomorrow).

You will loose some quality but I bet you won't notice.

what software are you using ?

You have to finalise the disc to play elsewhere I think - some do this by default - other software needs it to be set as an option.

if you have windows media player you can use that - support.microsoft.com/kb/297015

an alternative is free software like burn4free - I have used both.