My Compaq has a DVD +/- Writer and a DVD-ROM holder. Can I copy on to a DVD+R ?

Question

My Compaq desktop computer with Windows XP and a 3700+ AMD Processor has 2 DVD drives. One is labeled Lightscribe DVD +/- Writer, and the other says DVD-ROM. Can I copy a DVD disk with Construction Plans already on it to a DVD + R disk, or do I need a DVD +/- RW disk ?
The Construction Plans Disk has about 100 pages of drawings on it that are labeled as 2 sets of Plans.
About how long should it take to 'copy' the Plans on to the blank disk.
Is there any special technique required ?
Are there ways to speed the process if it takes a long time?
Can I do any work on the computer while the transfer goes on in the backgound or do I dedicate the entire computer to the transfer ?
Thanks in advance for the help, Jim.

Answer 1

the lightscribe burner is capable of burning several types of discs (actually just about all of them), as far as making a copy, not too hard to do, you can either use the builtin burning in XP or use a burning program like nero, the pc probably came with some sort of burning software....you just need to make sure that the info you are copying is in the same format as what you are burning. As far as the type of disc to use, it depends on a few factors, mainly what you will be viewing the burned disc with...if its a standalone dvd player check the types of discs that are compatible with it, if its just to have a copy to run on a pc then it shouldn't matter too much, whether you decide to use dvd-r or dvd+r or dvd-rw or dvd+rw doesn't really matter unless you plan to overwrite the info anytime in the future, then you'll want to use an rw disc. The speed of the copy is dependant on the speed of the media type and the drives themselves, and as afar as being able to do other computing while its copying, you certainly can, just keep in mind that the more processes you are doing the less speed you'll get. The best policy for getting the highest rate of disc copying is to not run any other programs during the burning process, and to turn off programs that you are not using. Depending on how much info you are copying the transfer could take anywhere from a couple of minutes to hours. A standard burnable (blank) dvd disc has the capacity for upto 4.5GBs of data.....or about 2 Hours of video, if its just raw data then it should take about 20 minutes to copy with your setup.

Answer 2

There are no DVD+/- R disks. That means a DVD + or DVD - Disk.And you can copy to either of them if you have the setup you say. The DVD-Rom is a read only driver and won't write to disks. There are also DVD +RW disks which I like to use. You should be able to write to those also.As to how long it will take that depends on yor set up.

Ron