The PC Surgery - Tiscali.co.uk

Do you ever find you love all but that "experimental" track on the latest Madonna album and wish you could compile your own CD with just the songs you like on it? Well, as long as you own the CDs the original tracks are on and you're not going to make hundreds of copies to sell down the local market, the process is very simple. All you need is Windows Media Player (click to download for free) and a few blank recordable discs.

Personalised compilations can be used in many ways. You can create your own playlists for social events, for example, without having to lug your entire CD collection along with you. Plus, copy entire albums for playing in the car or on your CD Walkman so the original discs can be kept safe and sound at home.

STEP 1
To burn your music to a new CD, first copy it to your PC. Insert an audio CD in your CD drive then open Windows Media Player and click "Copy from CD" on the lefthand side of the screen. Once Media Player recognises the CD, it will list all the tracks on it. To copy an album, leave all the boxes ticked - but to grab only certain tracks, deselect them all by clicking the very top box, then tick the boxes of the tracks you want.
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STEP 2
Now click the Copy Music icon at the top of the screen. The a progress bar will show how near the copying process is to completion. To check that it has been successful, click Media Library at the left of the Media Player window. You will should see the copied tracks listed in the lefthand pane.
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STEP 3
Once it has finished scanning your hard drive, Disk Cleanup gives you a list of all the files you can get rid of. Check the boxes next to the ones you want to throw away, and Disk Cleanup automatically calculates how much space you can save. Clicking on each category explains what these files are so you know what you are getting rid of. There is also an option to view the files you are planning to ditch, so you can check there is nothing vital among them.
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STEP 4
The newly copied tracks will now be found, on the left of the screen, under the title of the album from which they came. To add tracks to your new playlist, click on the album title to see the tracks appear on the right. Click and drag the tracks you want to add to the playlist to add them to the playlist (in our case "my music"). When the playlist title is highlighted and you can see a small plus sign beside the cursor, drop the track into the playlist.
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STEP 5
When you copy new tracks from other albums, add them to the playlist as you go. Keeping your music together like this means that if you don't finish your copying in one session, it's easy to find your tracks again. Repeat the processes until you've gathered all the music you want into your playlist. To check you have all the tracks you want, click on the playlist in the lefthand pane for a full list in the right one.
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STEP 6
Now decide in which order you want the tracks to appear on your new CD. The fact that you can rearrange their order in the playlist makes for a less fussy process overall, as there's no need to continually chop and change between albums while copying. Open the playlist in Media Library, and click on the track whose position you want to change. Two blue arrows at the top of the screen allow you to shift each track up or down the list as you choose.
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STEP 7
To burn your chosen music to a CD, select Copy to CD or Device, and choose your playlist from the scroll-down menu. The tracks will appear listed on the screen - ensure that the boxes beside each track are ticked. Insert a blank CD and click on the red Copy button. Wait for the tracks to be converted and copied, and once all tracks are on the CD, "closing disc" will appear next to each title. Now your disc is ready to play. To confirm that all is well, leave your freshly burned CD in the drive and select Now Playing. The tracks you have copied will be listed on the screen. To checking the overall effect, click on the first track and letting them all play through. If you connect to the internet, Media Player will even recognise and display the album artwork.
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