# using laptop to pc?



## chewie (Jun 9, 2008)

I am wondering, can I hook my laptop to my desktop, to burn a cd or dvd? my pc will burn but only has one disk drive. same with my laptop. can I use them together and if yes, how would I hook them up?


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## Frenchy (Sep 28, 2005)

......................................


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Yes, you could.. 

Two ways.. .either get a network switch and connect them to the switch, and share the drives so you can see the file with the burner... 

Or you could get a crossover cable and connect them (A lot harder to do... .)

OR, you could just buy a usb thumb drive for a few bucks and transfer the file on it from one machine to the other to burn.. That would be the easiest and cheapest..


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

If you want to burn a CD you already have using one machine... Put it in the burner. Bring up your burning software. Tell it you want to copy the CD. It will start the process and copy the files. Then it will eject the CD and ask you to put in the CD to copy it to, then burn the files it saved..

You don't need two drives to burn a CD you have in hand


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## chewie (Jun 9, 2008)

will it burn boughten dvd's? I thought those were protected so a person can't do that? that is exactly what I want to do.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

chewie said:


> I am wondering, can I hook my laptop to my desktop, to burn a cd or dvd? my pc will burn but only has one disk drive. same with my laptop. can I use them together and if yes, how would I hook them up?


You can burn a cd using one drive. They ar set up that way. Put the CD or DVD in and it "copies" the disk on the hard drive.
You then get directions to put in the Blank disk, and it then burns it on that one. Done it many times on my Dell that only had one drive.
And this iMac I have only has one drive, It can burn CD's and DVD's as well as playing them. But you do all this while using just one drive that is in the computer.


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

chewie said:


> will it burn boughten dvd's? I thought those were protected so a person can't do that? that is exactly what I want to do.


Yes, some can be.. some have protection, some don't.. and if they do have protection, there is software out there you can use...


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## Lost Ear (Dec 27, 2012)

If you want some free disc burning/ripping software, ImgBurn is a good one. I use this rather than any other software. I tried NERO and other software and none of them is as straight forward as ImgBurn, at least for me.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Lost Ear said:


> If you want some free disc burning/ripping software, ImgBurn is a good one. I use this rather than any other software. I tried NERO and other software and none of them is as straight forward as ImgBurn, at least for me.


ImgBurn and CDBurnerXP are the top free burning applications. They are both great applications. Personally, I prefer the CDBurnerXP interface.


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## Dale Alan (Sep 26, 2012)

I am glad I found this thread,I had no idea this could be done with one only. Thanks


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