Turn your CDs into flash drives using Vista’s Live File System

Posted on May 13, 2008 at 5:03 am

Windows Vista implements a great new way to use your Optical media, and that is the Live file system. The Live File System essentially allows you to use regular CDs and DVDs as you would Flash Drives. This means that you can just copy data to your media without the need to burn them. It also allows you to delete files off a DVD or CD. Though there are some disadvantages, which we’ll get to later.

Preparing your Media

This is pretty much automatic. Just pop in your CD or DVD and Autoplay should pop up with the following options:

Just hit “Burn files to Disc” and you’re good to go. Even if Autoplay is switched off, you can just head over to “Computer” and double click the appropriate Optical drive. Click “show formatting options” and you should now be looking at this.

Now we get to the topic of versions. You can use 4 versions of the Live File system. The descriptions are provided. Go ahead and choose the one you find most suitable. I personally recommend 2.01, which is also the Windows default.

Now, make sure you have assigned an appropriate name to the media and click Next. You will be presented with the following status Window:

Let it complete, and you’re done! You now have a CD/DVD that uses the Live File System. Using it should not be an issue, as it functions mostly like a flash drive.

Disadvantages

As neat as it is, the Live file system does have its disadvantages.

Compatibility: The Live File System was designed to be used with Vista, and certain versions are backward compatible as well. But the fact is, its certainly not as compatible as a Mastered CD/DVD.
Free Space not recovered: This is rather a big issue. Once you delete something, you don’t actually recover the space. The deletion merely “hides” the files. It’s like having a flash drive that permanently loses the space you utilize.
Can’t switch over to Mastered: Once you format your disc using the UDF, you’re stuck with UDF. You can’t re-format it using the traditional File System. You can change the version though.
Close Session: When you press the eject button of you Optical drive after using the Live files System, you will get a notification like this one:

Windows takes about ten seconds to close the session. But considering the time you save by not needing to burn the disc, this is hardly a setback.

To sum it up, even though the Live File system has its share of setbacks, it is still a great new feature, and one that every Vista user must try.

This is a guest post written by Om J. Bathija, a tech enthusiast and blogger.

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Comments

12 Responses to “Turn your CDs into flash drives using Vista’s Live File System”

Haris said on : May 13th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

I’m dying to run Windows Vista on my home PC I wish I had a better PC. There are so cool features in it. I would love to give this a try.

akishore said on : May 13th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Haris, don’t despair, the day will come! Anyway, it’s better to wait until all the quirks are ironed out…like with SP1, etc.

Nirmal said on : May 14th, 2008 at 1:00 am

Great find, I never noticed this feature on Vista, will try it today. Stumbled!

Ajay said on : May 19th, 2008 at 6:44 am

that’s very good . i will include this in my post how vista is different from xp .
i never know about this feature

Jeff said on : May 19th, 2008 at 6:55 am

I am pretty sure you can reformat using a traditional file system if it is a RW disc.

Richard said on : May 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

You can create a CD (or I assume DVD) that you can drag and drop to with CD/DVD burning software that I’ve seen. Unless I’m missing something, you can do this with any operating system. I’m not sure about reclaiming free space — it’s been a while since I’ve played with dragging and dropping onto a CD.

Shankar Ganesh said on : May 19th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

This is damn cool. Now, if I only had Vista

RXppZ2h0 said on : August 21st, 2008 at 8:01 pm

Trust me it’s not worth it.
Had vista on a 2.4 Ghz pentium 4 Gig system Ram. 128 Nvidia Geforce 5200
It’s the same ol XP with a few extra security features that add up to a whole lotta BLOAT.

I switched back to XP service pack 3 and kept running Puppy linux.

Don’t beleive me?????
You—— will——- seeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!

IT’S A RAM HOG !!!!!!!!!

MOin said on : September 6th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

oh really nice tip there. a little bit slow but can save the day when you only have a cd

Steve said on : November 17th, 2008 at 2:28 am

Ha, i bungled into doing this last week by mistake. I didnt realize it was a legit feature. I also deleted the media and like you said didnt recover the space. Its cool for future reference when i dont have the time to make a Data CD and i just wanna copy things quick.

Jery said on : February 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

What I am trying to do is to transfer DVD video to a flash drive and visa versa. Will this do this?

Jonathan said on : February 25th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

I tried to save some pictures before a re-install apparently using live file system. I have re-installed and the computer will not recognize the files. What gives?