Please help this techno no hoper...

[dan123]

Firstly, yes I have RTFM, secondly I admit I am technologically inadequate.

I've had my car 3 months and have finally faced up to the task of getting something on the hard drive.

I think I've worked out I can't just put a CD in the columbus and copy it.

I've burned a copy of a CD (using Nero Express) and this will play on the columbus but I can't work out how to get into the hard drive.

Can someone Please (in a very easy to understand way) help me?

Thanks

Dan

[jcblincs]

you need to convert your original (music) CD into MP3 format. this is something you do on your computer. once its converted you then burn it to a CD or a DVD or put it on an SD memory card. You then put this CD/DVD/SD card into the columbus and copy it to the hard drive.

What you have done is simply create a copy of your music disc in the same music format which will not copy onto the columbus hard drive !

to get the music into MP3 format there are various software out there to do it. The simples way is to use windows media player which you will already have on your PC - assuming you have a reasonably recent version of windows. ie XP or vista. earler version of windows might have it but i cant remember.

in windows media player there will be an option to "rip" the CD. this is a peculiar term for converting a music CD into MP3 format. before you rip its worth while noting where the finished file will end up so you can find it !! it usually defaults to putting it in "my music". insert the CD and start up media player. if you are connected to the web it will attempt to find the track listing and artwork from an online database - this works for most CDs unless they are very obscure (ie Pan Pipes of columbia vol 3 will probably not be found !!)

start the ripping process using the drop down "rip" menu in media player

once finished simply repeat for more CDs

once you have built up a few mp3 files burn to a cd and transfer to columbus. you will get about 8/9 albums worth of MP3 on a CD. Use a DVD and you will get a massive amount.

hope this helps. i have been doing this for years and its second nature so sorry if i have skipped some details. let me know if you need any more help

[dan123]

Thanks Jonathan.

I've now ripped and burned (on Media player) an album, this disc will play on the columbus but I can't for the life of me work out how to transfer from the CDR to the hard drive.

Any more clues?

Dan

[jcblincs]

Rtfm

[jcblincs]

sorry - couldnt resist !!

seriously -it is in the manual...however

1.insert CDR

2. press media button if not already in media mode

3. select CD from top left of screen

(note - sptesp 2 & 3 shoudl happen automatically when you insert the CD

4. press selection in bottom right corner

5. use the arrow key in top left of screen to move up a level in the folder hierachy and keep doing this until you get to the top level (ie if you have "Abba" and then "greatest hits" and then "waterloo" step up the folder list until "abba" is displayed other wise you will be copying each track one by one which is a pain. using this method you copy the whole of the top level folder. when making the CDR its best to have a top level folder called "music" or something that contains all your albums so you can simply copy the whole of this folder across - sorry forgot to mention this !)

6. At the side of the top level folder (lets call it "abba" for this exercise) you will see a button that looks like a calendar / keyboard icon

7. press this and then select copy

8. select where you want to put it - in your case i assume your hard drive is empty so simply press "copy folder/files here"

9. it will now copy across

10. best to turn the volume to zero as for some weird reason the copy is faster when the system is muted !

11. repeat for each folder.

once you have practiced you will be best to set up a decent folder structure to making braowsing easier.I have set up artists a-e, artists f-m , artists o-z. this makes it easier to copy stuff across and find stuff. each folder is about 4GB so i could put 4GB worth of music onto a DVD and copy it across.

be aware a full DVD with thsi amount on it will take anything from 30 mins to 1hr to copy (some will say they have done it quicker but it took that long on my system

hope this is clear. have a play and if you are really stuck send me a pm and I will send you my phone number and I can then talk you thtough it

cheers

[dan123]

Thank Jonathan

This isn't working.

May have found my problem, I was ripping and burning windows media files not mp3, have changed the setting and I'm now trying again.

Dan

[jcblincs]

not sure if columbus likes wma files. shoudl be OK if you go for mp3 files . have you got an SD card ? its quicker than having to keep burning discs all the time.