Want to burn an MP3 CD for my car

[Taz]

I've got Vista 64 and have lots of my original CDs ripped to MP3 format and stored on my hard drive. I want to be able to burn a CD with these songs on, for use in my car. Now, i've tried to put the songs onto a blank CD and Vista 64 'formatted' it for me. I then dragged and dropped the songs from my hard drive to the CD drive in Windows Explorer. The files were written and I then ejected the CD, upon which Vista closed the session.

However, I cannot play this CD in my car. The CD player in the car doesn't recognise the disc and ejects it with a disc error. I'm guessing it's something to do with the formatting of the disc.

So, is there a tried and trusted CD-writing utility that I can use to burn CD's with MP3 files for car use? Free would be good but cheap would be okay!

[Raz316]

I always use

CDBurnerXP: Introduction and News

while I use XP, apparently it works with "all versions of windows from 2000 onwards"

[s_kinton]

Now, i've tried to put the songs onto a blank CD and Vista 64 'formatted' it for me. I then dragged and dropped the songs from my hard drive to the CD drive in Windows Explorer. The files were written and I then ejected the CD, upon which Vista closed the session.

However, I cannot play this CD in my car. The CD player in the car doesn't recognise the disc and ejects it with a disc error. I'm guessing it's something to do with the formatting of the disc.

Sounds like you used a rewritable CD to me (from the formatting comment) and the burner probably left the session open, rather than write a lead out. Without a lead out most players wont play it.

Just use a normal CD-R with something like Nero and it'll work a treat. No need to re-encode the mp3's.

[Zadock]

Taz, I have an MP3/WMA cd player in my car and make these regularly...

A few quick points on this;

1. Check the compatability of your player and see which formats it supports

2. the player in my car will only read if you put tracks into folders i.e. don't just dump the mp3s in the root directory of the disk. put each album or compilation in a seperate folder.

You don't need any special burning tool to make an MP3 cd, if I'm in a hurry I just use the windows native programme. Drag and drop my folders and burn!

S_Skinton: a CDRW shouldn't be a problem with an MP3 cd player unless its been written before, or a few times before.

[Taz]

Asl always, thanks for all the advice so far. I tried to research this problem today and it seems Vista differs from XP. My discs created under XP last year seem to work fine. They are BenQ CD-R's. I just burnt some news ones last night under my current OS which is Vista and it's these that cannot be read by the CD drive in my car.

It looks like others are having the same problem and are having to resort to third party CD burning software to overcome this issue with Vista:

mp3 cd won't play in car - Microsoft Windows Vista Community Forums - Vistaheads

[Taz]

I always use

CDBurnerXP: Introduction and News

while I use XP, apparently it works with "all versions of windows from 2000 onwards"

I downloaded CDBurnerXP and it worked like a champ in Vista 64! The interface is a doddle to use and it burnt a full 700MB cd in under 2.5 minutes. Most importantly, the MP3 files could be read by the CD player in my car. So, thanks for that suggestion.