How to Burn a Complete CD to the Hard Drive

Rip CDs to your hard drive.

MP3 players have almost made CDs obsolete, mainly because they are so convenient. Music lovers can store their entire music collections in portable music players. If you have some old CDs that you can't live without, and want to make the transition to digital music, you can transfer entire discs to your hard drive. Copying CDs to your hard drive also provides backup copies in the event that a disc is lost, stolen or damaged.

Instructions

1. Open Windows Media Player by clicking on the "Start" button and selecting "Windows Media Player" from the pop-up menu.

2. Place the CD that you want to copy to your hard drive in the CD-ROM drive on your computer. If Windows Media Player begins to play the CD automatically, click on the square "Stop" button.

3. Select "Rip CD" and the files will automatically begin transferring to the hard drive. They will transfer one by one, and progress will be displayed in the pane on the right side of the Windows Media Player screen.

4. Eject the CD when all of the files have been ripped to your computer. If you use Windows XP, you can find the files in your "My Music" folder. If you are running Windows 7 or Vista, they will be in the folder that's labeled "Music Library". You can access either of these folders by clicking on the "Start" button and selecting them from the pop-up menu.

Tips & Warnings

• Be patient while the music is copying to your hard drive. It may take a few minutes, depending on file size and the number of songs that are being transferred.

• Avoid copying retail CDs to your hard drive, as the vast majority of them are copyrighted, making duplication illegal.

References

• Windows Media: Ripping CDs in Windows Media Player