[andrewjmorin]

On one of my old PC's (1997ish) I had an HP CD burner that shipped with "Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3.01" which was made for adaptec by Roxio. I archived numerous CD's from my music collection to the .cif format. After a minor tragedy, I need to recover part of my CD collection, but I don't see any way to use .cif files in my current "Roxio Creator Basic v9" software. How can I get my music back?

[Brendon]

Hello Andrew,

I'm not aware of what applications are contained in Creator Basic v9, but if you have Creator Classic, or Roxio Disc Copier, or Music Disc Creator, you're in luck.

Roxio Disc Copier 9:
-Select CD & DVD Copy
-Browse for Disc Image/DVD-Video folder
-select your .CIF file and insert a disc
-click 'Copy Now'

Creator Classic 9:
-Select Other Tasks > Burn From Disc Image File
-select your .CIF file and click 'Open'
-insert a disc
-click OK

Roxio Music Disc Creator 9:
Project type - Audio CD
-Add to Project > Add Audio Tracks
-select your .CIF file, the tracks will be shown in Media Selector
-select each track in turn and click 'add'. The tracks will be extracted to the hard drive one by one, and added to your project. Best format to use for extraction is .WAV
-once you have all tracks extracted, insert a disc and click the Burn button

Only the Roxio modules named will burn your .CIF files. The Home application has a menu item "Burn Image" but it is a simplified Sonic module and won't burn .CIF files. For the same reason the Sonic 'Copy Disc' from the Home app won't let you select image files.

[andrewjmorin]

...
Only the Roxio modules named will burn your .CIF files. The Home application has a menu item "Burn Image" but it is a simplified Sonic module and won't burn .CIF files. For the same reason the Sonic 'Copy Disc' from the Home app won't let you select image files.

Wow, thanks a millions Brendon. That's a lot of info.

So, I looked around again at my Creator Basic v9 and I see nothing that indicates the other tools you mention. The CBv9, by fortunate coincidence, came bundled with my newer HP workstation...are the products you mention things I will have to pay for, or are any of them provided as a service to old customers like me?

[ogdens]

Wow, thanks a millions Brendon. That's a lot of info.

So, I looked around again at my Creator Basic v9 and I see nothing that indicates the other tools you mention. The CBv9, by fortunate coincidence, came bundled with my newer HP workstation...are the products you mention things I will have to pay for, or are any of them provided as a service to old customers like me?

The applications (Creator Classic, or Roxio Disc Copier, or Music Disc Creator) that Brendon was refering too are in the full retail version of EMC 9. You have a a OEM version, which apparently does not have these applications in it.

I would double check that your version does not have any of them.

If not you will have to purchase the FULL version. Here is one site that has it http://www.amazon.com/Roxio-Media-Creator-...N/dp/B000HJQYE0 but you can shop around for a better deal if you decide to go that route.

Just make sure you get the Full retail version, not some other crippled OEM version,

[lynn98109]

There are some other programs that can open them
http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/cif

But I don't think any of them are free, and Brendon's advice is probably the best.

Lynn

[Brendon]

When I was trying things out yesterday I found that MagicIso didn't like version 4 .CIFs, but WinIso, ISOBuster, and Power Iso would burn them okay. My favorite image burner, ImgBurn, won't look at them.

It's probably a forlorn hope, but you can have Disc Copier 9 without knowing it. Sonic has been gradually hiding or removing the Roxio modules in favor of their own 'simplified' software, and Disc Copier was hidden in the full version 9. It was removed from the menus, and the only way you can find it is to go up through the Start > All Programs > Roxio > copy route. It's worth having a peep, though I don't hold much hope.

I would suggest that you go for an early version of the full software, from v5 through to 9 depending on how much function you want to pay for. I like 5, 7.5, and 9 myself. I haven't tried 10 on a v4 .CIF yet, and 11 [Creator 2009] seems to have shunned all backward compatibility.

Cheers,
Brendon

[andrewjmorin]

When I was trying things out yesterday I found that MagicIso didn't like version 4 .CIFs, but WinIso, ISOBuster, and Power Iso would burn them okay. My favorite image burner, ImgBurn, won't look at them...

Yeah, I tried those as well, but none of them recognized my cif's as good data. I've dug up the old, dead machine this HD came from and resurrected the original software. The old software's setup routine required the old CD burner hardware, so I had to locate and plug that in as well, and the SW won't run on XP so I had to install NT 4 as a multi-boot. Beating them at their own game: priceless.

[Brendon]

You tried WinIso, ISOBuster, and Power Iso ??

That's strange. I didn't think the version 3 .CIF was that different from version 4, yet those three worked fine with my version 4 .CIFs.

I'll go see if I can unearth my old version 3 and try it out. I'll get back to you later.

[Brendon]

Here I am again,

I reinstalled 3.x and wrote myself a .CIF file with it. Yes, the version 3 CIF is different from the version 4 one.

It won't open in any of
MagicISO
IsoBuster
EZB Systems UltraISO
Power Iso
Win ISO
. . .but it does open in the EMC 9 Creator Classic.

Regards,
Brendon