How do you add files to a CD-R that you have already burned files onto? I know you are supposed to leave it "open" but I don't know how to do that. I don't use a burning program, I just copy & paste it. If I've already done that can I add more now? If not, how will I be able to be able to do it to another one? Will I have to use a burning program? I really appreiciate any help. I work for a veteran's office, and I am archiving all of their files. I work with older people who aren't that tecnology savy, so they leave me to do all this stuff & I'm not all that technological myself.

Also, any suggestions as to how to back-up the files as I'm scanning them without having to wait to get like 50 files scanned so as to not keep having to insert the cd, save, & continue? I thought about bringing my flash drive to work to use it as a temporary save until I could get about 100 files scanned then saved to the CD-R.

As far as keeping a backup goes, flash drive would do nicely. Keep a copy on the computer and a copy on your flash drive, that way if anything happens to either you haven't lost the time you've spent scanning.

As for the CD burning.. the best bet is to get yourself a dedicated CD burning program. The built-in Windows stuff isn't particularly powerful, since it was designed with simplicity in mind. If you bought your PC all-in-one from a shop, you should have a program pre-installed. If you got it part by part, or from a friend, then the CD writer should have come with some burning software. Failing that, have a chat with your boss about getting a copy of Nero Express. It's a nice simple program that makes it easy to do what you need and I know it includes the option of multi-session burning (adding files at a later time). If you can't find a copy of Nero Express for sale, I think it's normally supplied with CD/DVD writers, and you ought to be able to pick one of those up at a computer part shop for about US$50.

Once you've burned a CD-R, you can't ever edit it again. You can do it with CD-RWs, though.

Honestly, I have to echo the people above who suggested a flash drive. They're simple to use, and nowadays their storage capacity is much larger than a CD-R (the smallest flash drives I see nowadays are like 1GB, versus CD's 700MB) and cheap.

With some software, you can multi-session CD-Rs, allowing you to add more files at a later date. You can also delete the files already on there, but you can't reclaim the space. The only problems are 1) the disc won't work with DVD players / CD players and 2) you have to keep using that software, which isn't a big deal normally.

But what you're effectively doing is just keeping one session open in perpetuity, which means that you're going to have to use the same program on the same computer to be able to see the files. In addition, your ability to edit the files on there are limited, and even though you can straight out delete them you're still wasting space. Both of these make CD-Rs poor backups. Neither of this is really a problem with CD-RWs. What I said still stands.

I mean, back in my teens I used to use those two mediums as backups for my video and music files so I could free space on my 40GB computer. I would burn and rewrite CDs so much that I literally wore down my CD-RW drive (tech guy was amazed, said he had never seen someone actually use it to death), and was given a CD/DVD-RW drive and then used DVD-R/RWs as their size suited my needs. Later I got a bigger computer and work with more and more files, and got to the point where even DVDs weren't sufficient and bought a 500MB external hard drive for about $200. (Nowadays I could get a 1TB external for about half that.) So I think I've had sufficient experience with what different forms of storage media can and can't do.

But I digress (and wildly so).

CD-RWs are poor storage media because they have limited life, especially if you are editing and re-writing.

The original question wasn't about keeping constant backups of changes, it was archiving files, so once they're burnt, they're burnt. The 'backup' part of the question was just a temporary storage solution until they had accumulated 700MB of files, which could then be burned to a CD-R in one go. For archival, CD-RWs are not the way to go.

I would agree about using a Flash Drive for a backup system. You can get them relatively cheaply and sometimes you can find them on sale. Walmart has some 4GB ones for $12.00 and Office Depot has some 8GB ones for $21.99. If your office is paying for it, then see if they'll invest in a 16GB flash drive. You can find them at Office Depot for between $35 and $50. And 16GB is a lot of space when you are scanning files into PDFs. It will hold alot of information. And it's the easiest way to backup files. Then you don't have 100 CDs to go through to find what you're looking for. It's all right there on one, and you can go in and delete, and add, and organize and add folders, etc. That's probably the best way to do it.