I wish to transfer data from old 3? inch floppy disks to a CD-R. The computer I am using has both a 3? inch disk drive and a CD burner drive. This computer is not connected to the internet. Whenever I wish to create a new data CD I insert a blank CD into the drive and double-click on the D drive (which is the CD burner drive). However, a message appears saying “D is not accessible or the device is not ready”. How can I fix this problem so I can create data CDs? The computer is running Windows 95.

The reason you cannot write a data CD by inserting a blank CD into the drive and then double-clicking the CD burner (D:) drive is because Windows 95 does not support in-built CD burning. Unlike Windows XP and Vista, Windows 95 was created before consumer CD writers were mainstream in the market, and thus the operating system itself does not support writing data CDs. In fact, Windows 98 and 2000 also do not support this, and only Windows XP and Vista have inbuilt CD writing functionality (and Windows Vista also supports inbuilt DVD writing facilities). The message you are receiving when double-clicking on the D drive, with a blank CD inserted, indicates that the CD drive is not ready, as the computer cannot understand that you have inserted an unformatted blank CD into the drive, and it cannot read the contents of that CD. So, as you can imagine at this point, there is no way to fix this error message, as Windows 95 does not support inbuilt CD burning.

However, you will be glad to hear that all is not lost. You can obtain third-party programs which allow you to create data and audio CDs under Windows 95. As Windows 95 is quite an old edition of Windows such programs are becoming few and far between, but I was able to find one program which may meet your needs. Express Burn (www.nch.com.au/burn) is a program provided by NCH Swift Sound, a local Canberra company. While I have not used this program, it does seem to meet your needs as it allows the creation of data CDs and also supports Windows 95. This program is also free, allowing you to download the application and see whether it meets your needs without having to pay for the software. As you have mentioned that your Windows 95 computer does not have internet access, you will need to download the program onto a computer with internet access and then transfer the program onto the Windows 95 computer using a floppy disk or a CD.

While the above is the simplest solution to the issue, an alternative solution would be to connect a 3? inch floppy drive to another computer which you can access and is running Windows XP. There are two options for implementing this alternative. First, you could remove the internal 3? inch floppy drive from your Windows 95 computer and physically install the drive into your other computer running Windows XP. Even though floppy drives are a legacy technology, most new motherboards do have the connectors to allow you to connect a floppy drive to the computer. However, this is a rather inconvenient solution, as it requires you to open the computer and install an internal device into the computer. Furthermore, if your computer is relatively new, and still covered under a new computer warranty, you cannot open the computer without voiding your warranty, which I would strongly discourage. Rather, a better solution would be to purchase an external 3? inch floppy drive for the computer. These drives connect to the computer through a USB port, and act just like any other external drive connected to the computer. This also has the advantage that you could connect the external floppy drive to numerous other computers, should the need arise. These external drives are relatively inexpensive, at around $40 - $50, and are available from most computer shops. This would be my recommended solution, as this is likely to be the easiest way to transfer data from the floppy drives onto CDs without the need to do any complicated hardware setup or attempt to find CD burning software which will work on Windows 95.