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From: William R. Walsh on 27 Mar 2010 14:09 Hi! > My question is *exactly* what kind of media do I buy? Your computer can seemingly burn both the + and - R/RW types. The RW discs can be erased and reused, which is something you won't want to do with recovery discs. That narrows it to the "R" types, and you might as well use DVD+R because those blank discs seem to be more common (and cheaper in some cases). > 8x? > 16x? These are the speeds at which the disc can reliably be burned. If you use a slower rated disc (8X) for a fast (16X) burn you may end up with corrupted data, or discs that have only a short life. Some DVD burners and the software that operates them are smart enough not to burn media at too high of a speed. Others are not. With these discs, you can also choose to burn them at a slower rate than the maximum listed on the box or media. Doing so will not harm anything. (The reason why is below.) On the other hand, a faster burning rate means that the discs may not be as precisely made as they would be had you burned them at a slower rate. (This is true because the components inside the drive have to move faster to keep up, and therefore may not move as precisely.) This is usually not a big deal for any modern drive that will read the discs. Since you have an 8X drive, you can safely use either the 8X or 16X discs without issue. It would just be a matter of what costs less if you care about price. Do try to buy media from a well established name--although this is far from foolproof (the name on the box seldom if ever matches the actual maker of the disc, even if that company does make such products) as the actual manufacturers can change. Verbatim, Sony, and Memorex are all reasonably good choices. "House brand" media can also be OK if you can determine who actually made the discs. William
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