Photos burned to disc from Vista- not readable on XP???

**suesb** · 09-10-2008

I need help. Unfortunately, I had to replace my laptop after it was stolen- and Vista was the only operating system sold installed on the laptop. I have backed up photos, installed them on the new laptop, they are visable, etc., but when I burned a disc of specific photos (but not before Vista made me "format the disc" for 12 minutes). When I gave them to the friend (her father had passed away), they cannot be read on her XP laptop- in fact it stated 0 data was on the CD. I didn't believe it, so I brought it home put it in the Vista machine- wala! there are the 190 photos. So I tried on my husband's laptop--which has XP- and Oops, error message. I am not fond of Vista, but this is just maddening. Can anyone tell me how to address this, please? And just for my basic info---why does Vista have to "format" the CDs?--clearly I never had to do that with XP and things worked quickly, effeciently and beautifully. I f someone can help I will be Eternally Grateful

**Viceman** · 09-10-2008

I think you'll find the problem lies with your CD-RW drives and not the operating system.

If the CD-RW drives are not capable of reading from a Lightscribe disk, then the disk will not be recognised regardless of which operating system you are using.

You may need some third-party software such as Nero or Roxio to do what you want.

I do know that Lightscribe will work under XP and yes, if it is a RW disk then you can re-format a RW disk.

**Expertz** · 09-10-2008

I recently did the same thing but from the opposite direction, drag & drop in Vista and could not read on XP & earlier operating systems. The fix was to change during the Vista wizard, how the blank disc was formatted, not chosisng the second of the two options. By default, Windows burns discs in the Live File System format, but you can also choose to burn discs in the Mastered format (2nd one). As soon as I chose the 2nd option during the wizard, I was able to burn the DVD and have it readable on older machines.
My suggestion would be to re-burn the CD/DVD watching carefully what disc formatting process is used in XP.

**suesb** · 09-10-2008

Thank you both. Good suggestions and I will try them today! I am so reliant on XP (it's what we use on my work laptop) that I don't have the time (and yes, patience) to master Vista. I appreciate the tips!