Its good to sometimes create a mixed CD of tracks for the car or to compile a CD of favourite tracks with a track from several different albums that you like a lot.

You can do this quite easily when you understand a few things about music formats and copy and paste between folders.

If you are copying from a commercial CD you need to rip the music using Windows Media Player. This is a usually a simple enough process, you put the CD in the drive, open windows media maker and click on the RIP tab and follow the prompts. This converts the music to a digital format that can be played on the computer and copied to another disk.

The actual music files are usually stored in a folder in My Documents >My Music. So go search there for the files. If the files already have an mp3 or wav file extension then you can simply go to the CD drive and open it to explore the files, choose the ones you want and copy them to clipboard.

This article explains more about music file extensions

This article explains why you need to rip a commercial cd with media player

This is the step by step that makes creating a mixed music audio CD easy.

Paths
My Documents > My Music > Name of Folder where tracks are
My Computer > D Drive  (or the drive with the icon that shows a CD)
Start>All Programs>Windows Media Player

To copy from a CD

Place CD in drawer
Go to My Computer
Select and right click the drive with the picture of a CD (usually D or E)
Choose open from the menu

If files are visible with a wav or mp3 extension

Create a new folder in My Music
Name it with the title you want
Select the tracks you want to copy

Select one track with one click
Hold down ctrl (bottom left on keyboard)
Select further tracks with one click

When all tracks to copy are selected
Rest the arrow on the selected area and right click
Choose copy

Return to the folder you created in My Music
Open the folder (double click or right click and choose open)
Right click in the space and choose paste

Remove the CD from the drawer

If files cannot be copied in this way…

Open Windows Media Player
Click on the RIP tab
If this doesn’t work, read help to change settings.
If this is a commercial CD you can use Windows Media Player
to download the CD track names from online

To Re-name the Tracks

Find the files in My Music

Double click to play a track in Windows Media Player
Select the part of the title to change
Type in over the top of the selection the new name
leave track 1 and the .ext in the title eg

Track 1 Autumn Leaves.wav

If you have several named track 1 change the number to 2, 3 etc

To Burn a New Audio CD

Place a blank CD in drawer
Go to My Computer
Select and right click the drive with the picture of a CD (usually D)
Choose open from the menu

On the left side please note the option to
burn these files to a CD link

Return to the My Music folder
Open the folder (double click or right click and choose open)
Open the folder where the tracks you want on the CD are
Select the tracks you want on the CD

Select one track with one click
Hold down ctrl (bottom left on keyboard)
Select further tracks with one click

When all tracks to copy from this folder are selected
Rest the arrow on the selected area and right click
Choose copy

Return to the folder for the D drive or if not open -
Open the folder (double click or right click and choose open)
Then right click in the empty space and choose paste

Repeat this copy and paste process
for any other tracks from other folders in My Music
until you have all the tracks you want in the CD drive folder

Click on the left side link to burn these files to a CD

Note – burn to a CD not to a DVD or to a rewriteable CD
You may need to add up the file sizes manually to make sure they will all fit on the size CD you have. Hold the mouse over the track and it should show the file size. Most blank CDs fit 700mb of data.

This is a simple tutorial and different Windows programs and versions may require you to change settings, but for most people this will work just fine.

The burned CD should play fine in any CD player.