A relative has asked you to burn a CD of all the photos and videos from the recent family celebration so that they can watch them at any time on their PC or desktop player. If you are not satisfied, you can also burn an audio CD of some of his favorite songs to play on his stereo system.
After accepting the assignment and returning home, however, you realized that you no longer had any burning software installed on your computer and could not immediately fulfill the request made to you: you now rely exclusively on storage media such as USB sticks and have abandoned the use of discs for good. After asking a friend of yours for advice, he advised you to download Nero, a rather complete and feature-rich burning program: resolute, then, you didn’t hesitate any longer and opened Google in search of information about it, ending up right on this guide of mine.
So, if you’ve chosen Nero to make the discs you need, I’d say you’re in exactly the right place to start: in this guide, in fact, I’ll show you how to burn a CD with Nero in a simple and immediate way, also explaining how to make the various types of discs (audio and data CDs, video DVDs and so on) that the program offers. Don’t worry if you’re not very tech savvy: this software is easy to use and affordable for everyone. Ready to get started? OK, enjoy your reading and have fun!
Download Nero
Nero has been the undisputed king of burning software for years and, even though in this era there is no shortage of alternatives to optical media, the development of the program for Windows has continued steadily in order to meet the needs of everyone, both professional and non-professional users, with other features designed for multimedia.
Exactly as in the past, however, the full version of Nero is only available for a fee: if you’re interested in purchasing it, first visit the program’s official page and, once the site is loaded, click on the Order Now button; on the next page, enter all the requested data (including payment details) to proceed immediately with the transaction.
To order Nero Platinum (the most complete and expensive version), you have two solutions: you can buy the annual renewal license, at a cost of €42.95/year, or go for the unlimited license, at a one-time cost of €99.95. If you want to save money, instead, you can resort to the “minimal” versions of the suite, among which stand out Nero Standard (full version at 54.95€), and Nero Burning ROM (single program at 34.95€).
However, once you complete the transaction to purchase a paid copy of Nero, you will be sent the download link of the installer directly via email, along with the serial number of the license.
To install Nero, simply download the setup file from the aforementioned link, launch it and, among the various screens that will appear during installation, stop at the one where you are asked for the serial number of the license (also present in the email that arrived after the purchase).
After copying and pasting the license code into the text field, click on the Next button. In the following screenshots, just click on the Next button and finally on the Install button to finalize the setup and start Nero.
Excuse me? Does the price seem excessive to you, especially since you only need to make a couple of discs and nothing more? Then you can take advantage of the trial version of one of the versions of Nero mentioned above, running without limits for a period of 15 days.
To use it, go to the Nero download page, choose the version you want to download, proceed to download and install it following the on-screen instructions and use it on your computer within the time limit, after which you will be asked to purchase a license.
If you want a completely free version of Nero, the only program available is Nero MediaHome Free, which offers very minimal functionality, as I explained in my guide on how to download Nero for free.
Burn a CD with Nero
Once the program installation is complete, you can launch it on your computer by searching for the Nero Start application on your computer’s desktop or in the Windows Start menu (accessible by clicking on the flag icon located in the lower left corner of the screen).
Once you have launched the management software, click on the Nero Express icon to enter the burning interface of the suite. For your information, Nero Express is the easiest tool to use to complete, in a few simple steps, the creation of different types of optical media, without “fiddling” with advanced settings and seemingly incomprehensible details.
Data CD
Making a data CD, i.e., a medium containing files as they appear on your computer, is really a simple task. Just to be clear, you can use this format to store photos, videos and other types of documents, which you can play or view on other computers (and, in some cases, on desktop media players).
To burn a data CD, first insert a blank floppy disk in your burner, open Nero Express, go to the Data section (located on the left side of the window) and select the Data CD item. At this point, a new window should open where you can add the data you are interested in: click the Add button to choose the files you want to copy to the diskette from your computer’s memory and, when you are satisfied with the result, click the Next button to continue.
Remember that a normal CD offers a space of 700 MB, so try not to exceed this value: otherwise, you can resort to a DVD, which offers storage space of over 4 GB. On the next page, you must select the burner you want to use in the Current burner field, enter a name for the disc in Disc name, choose the number of copies you want to make and finally click Burn.
The program will start burning to the disc and, at the end of the process, will automatically open the burner tray so you can extract the disc you just made. If you don’t want to burn the disc right away but want to create an image file for later use, select the Image Recorder item on the project finalization screen as the burner.
Audio CD
To listen to music on old audio systems or in a car stereo with a CD player, you won’t just have to copy your music files to a simple data disk, but you’ll need to make a real audio CD, in which the source music files are automatically “converted” to a format suitable for the aforementioned devices.
First, then, open Nero Express and go to the Music section: on the next screen, select the Audio CD item and, in the window that opens on the screen, add in the appropriate field the audio files that you want to write on the disk (in MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC and so on.) by pressing the Add button, or by dragging them directly into it.
Unlike data CDs, reconverted audio files take up much more space due to their higher quality, so the remaining disc space is counted in terms of minutes of playback. Generally speaking, the capacity of an audio CD is around 16-18 tracks (80 minutes).
Once you’ve added the tracks you want, you can choose to preview them using the Run button or apply enhancements using the Normalize all audio files (to bring all files to the same playback volume) and No pause between tracks (to play them consecutively, with no space between tracks; this is particularly useful if the tracks are chained together).
When you’re ready, click on the Next button at the bottom, select the burner you want to use, enter the title and artist to go with the CD (they are optional), choose the number of copies you want to create and click the Burn button to start the burning process. I recommend that you choose a low burning speed so that you can avoid any playback problems on older systems.
If you don’t want to burn the audio CD right away but want to create an ISO file to burn later, select Image Recorder as the burner in the final screen. If, however, you want advice on which CDs to buy to burn music, read my post on the subject.
Copy CD
Do you already have a CD and need to make multiple copies of it? You don’t need to repeat all the steps, just use Nero’s Copy feature. Insert the disc you want to copy into your CD burner (or a CD player without burning functionality), then open Nero Express again, go to the Image, Project, Copy section and click on the Copy Disc item.
In this window, you’ll have two fields to select: in Source unit you’ll have to indicate the player or burner where the disc to be copied is located, while in Destination unit you’ll have to indicate the burner where the copy or copies of the disc will be made. If you have only one burner, the two drives will coincide: the program in this case will create a temporary image of the disc on your computer (in the Image files path) and, at the time of copying, will ask you to extract the original disc and insert a blank disc (or blank discs, in case of multiple copies) into the drive.
If you have two separate drives (one drive and one burner or two burners), check the Quick Copy box to quickly copy between the two drives without creating any temporary files. Once the drives are set up, you only need to indicate the number of copies, the maximum writing speed and finally click the Copy button: the copy process can be applied to both Data CDs and Audio CDs created earlier.
Burning image files
Do you have an ISO file to burn and don’t know how to proceed? If this is the case, you can use Nero Express to burn the virtual disc to a real optical disc right away.
To proceed, insert a blank disc in the burner, start Nero Express as usual and go to Image > Project > Copy, from where you’ll need to select Disc Image or Saved Project.
At this point, a screen should open that allows you to choose the location of the image file you have: in particular, Nero Express supports ISO, CUE, BIN and UDF image types, as well as any projects created with the other programs in the Nero suite.
Once you have selected the image file/project to be burned, a simple window will open from which you can select the burner to be used and indicate the number of copies to be made. When you’re ready, simply press the Burn button to take the image file to a physical disc.
If you’ve made it this far, it means that you’ve perfectly learned the techniques for burning a CD with Nero: the only “problem” is that you don’t want to spend a single euro to buy a license, so you’re looking for an equivalent alternative that can allow you to achieve a similar result. Have I guessed right? Perfect, then I think I have what you need: take a look at my guide to burning programs, I’m sure you’ll find what you need!