delete read files

Hi,

once files are written to a CD they are there for the life of that PC - the structure cannot be alterred.

Even CD-RW , ie read/write means that the cd can be added to but not alterred

sorry to be the bringer of bad news

It depends on what you are doing.

ALL files copied from any CD to your hard drive WILL have the read only attribute set.

There are various free-ware and share-ware programs that you can get to change the attribute back for files on your hard drive.
Check the file sections at www.nonags.com

On a CD-RW disk, as long as the CD is in the CD-RW drive, you should be able to delete files from the CD.
This assumes that the files were placed on the CD using drop and drag, and were not burned on using the normal CD burner interface.

On some CD-R disks, if the CD was not closed, and there is enough room in the file table area of the CD, you can 'functionally' remove files.
What you have to do, is open the CD burning application, import the old session on the CD, and select files to remove.
What happens, is that a new file table is burned to the CD that leaves off the path to the removed files.

CAUTION: If there is not enough room for a new file table, ALL data on the CD may be lost!!!

Chas

>>>There are various free-ware and share-ware programs that you can get to change the attribute back for files on your hard drive.

If you copy all CD-ROM data onto a harddrive, doit into a Directory, there you can change the attributes of that directory (and make sure you include the subfolder). Therfore you change the READ-ONLY Flag with a single mouse-click.

Working for a Mail-Archiving company, I know about the problem of deleting data from a CD-ROM (WORM, or whatever). You can NOT delete the data from a CD-ROM.

There is maybe an option to change the firmware of your CD-Writer, cause you could "BlackBurn" the data you want to delete. But that isn't worth the effort.

Copy everything onto a harddrive, delete the necessary files and then re-write onto a new CD-ROM. Works pretty fast once you have done it 2 or 3 times. Smile

J.