How Do I Burn CDs of MS Word docs?

Moved from "How to"

I plan to add a fast external USB 2.0 hard drive to my MacBook Pro (2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HD).

I will be storing hundreds of MS Word 2000 documents, created in the Parallels/XP SP 2 partition, on the external drive.

Though I am not technically savvy, I have successfully installed Parallels Desktop for Mac, the XP OS, my old MS Word 2000 program, and the (Windows-only) Naturally Speaking 9 speech-to-text software which I will be using to archive several decades of aging (hard-to-scan) newspaper clips -- reviews, columns and features.

Now I need -- AND WOULD BE MOST GRATEFUL FOR -- advice from this forum's experienced Parallels users.

How do you install/hook-up an external hard drive on the Mac so it stores data produced within the virtual XP OS?

How do you burn these XP-created MS Word data CDs from such a hard drive? (Or does the CD-burner only work within the Mac OS?)

Thanks, in advance, for any advice or suggestions.

 

How do you store your VM info on an external? Put your .hdd file on the external and point your configuration to the new file path (just change the path of Drive 1).

Easiest way to burn is to just drag your files onto your Mac side, then burn them. Search around if you want to get the burner working on the Windows side. I haven't bothered as it works fine on the Apple side and it is easiest.

 

Thank you, Eru. I am new to discussion groups and that enviablle tech savvy which you exhibit and attribute to me. Could you please explain what you advise in language which your intelligent grandfather might understand. I don't know what an .hdd file is. And I would need detailed instructions on how to perform either fix you describe.

I have not yet finished researching nor purchased the external drive. I decided to get one because the inadequate 8 GB size partition the automated/recommended Parallels install has left me with only a couple of gigs of storage, once I installed XP SP2, Word 2000, Naturally Speaking 9, Firefox browser, AVG anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, etc. etc.

I could and will, if you're interested, explain why my career as a journalist, now retired, led me to choose a MacBook Pro to archive decades of (hard-to-scan) yellowing newsprint movie/game reviews, columns and features via Parallels' Desktop Mac's virtual PC environment and the PC-only Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 speech-to-text software.

Thankis, agian, wherever this goes from here.

Joe G
As a newbie, I din't blame Parallels for misleading me. I thought, in the quick install directions, they said it would be somewhat easy to increase the size of the virtual XP OS partition. Well, it isn't. Not for me. So, despite extra cost, I decided to buy and plug in a separate external hard disk. I justified the expense by assuring myself that by giving the XP documents its private storage space and routinely burning CDs I would be safeguarding the data.

Anyway, that's some of the process that led me to the question I posed -- and which you were the only one, so far, kind and perceptive enough to respond to.

 

It is actually not that hard to expand a partition... Look at the sticky thread under the Mac forums... It's not THAT bad, if you have any questions let us know and we'll try to bridge the gap with you.

An external will greatly improve your preformance as you are probably running a 5400 RPM drive which does not work the greatest with two OSes accessing it.

Basically, with the external drive. All you do is spotlight (Apple's search in the upper right hand corner) for '*.hdd' naturally without the quotes. Then, drag and drop that file onto your External Harddrive (naturally, it must be connected to do this). You then, from the properties window of Parallels, click on the file path (it will look something like '~/Library/Parallels/', that's just the form of a file path, it could be different so don't put the exact words in stone), now in the new window to CHANGE the path, browse to the .hdd file that you dragged onto your external drive.

To burn CDs, the easiest way is to enable drag and drop from the Parallels property window, if you can't find it, let us know. Then, Create a burn folder from your finder and drag things into it.

 

Thanks, again, Eru.

I will check out the navigation routes you propose. (fyi I was a celestial navigator in the US Air Force in a previous life. A lot of good it does me now in the digital realm.)
I lack confidence in this digital process which you take for granted. I will try. And then I will likely get back to you, as you generously invite me to. So, please continue to check this thread in days to come, since my schedule may not allow me to respond as promptly as I should.

Joe

 

No problem, I typically go through all changed threads at least once every 24 hours. If around 72 elapsed I accidentaly missed your thread before marking the forum read, just give it a bump (literally a new reply saying something like that).

Well, jobs like that probably carry over because of the critical thinking skills required. Computers aren't that bad, a lot of people just find them intimidating at first.

 

I suspect the USB performance may not be as good as the internal drive.

Your 5400 internal drive (if thats what you have ) is probably SATA or SATAII.

USB 2.0 is only 480Mbs (48MBS) and internal SATA is either 1500Mbs (150MBS) or SATAII 3000Mbs (300MBS) and an internal PATA is probably UDMA/100 (100MBS) or UDMA/133 (133MBS).

Mbs = Mega Bits per second MBS = Mega Bytes per second.

The rotational speed of the platter is not necessarily the best benchmark for determining performance, nor is the interface rate. Number of platters, cache size and drive age all play into the equation (a two year old 7200 rpm drive may be slower then a new 5400 rpm drive due to upgraded electronics and technological advances)



I would look at an external SATA 3Gbs for the best external performance. There are PCexpress cards and/or PCcards than can plug into the slot to support external SATA.

See this link for a PCexpress card example.
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?pid=1100

There are also external drives that can support both USB and eSATA connections.

This link has some perfomance info too.
http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/vantecns3_1

Regards,
steve

 

Keep in mind though before discounting what I said... When you have two OSes accessing a single drive it slaughters it, when you have them spread out your drive would have to be a dinosaur compared to the internal to really function slower...

Good points about the eSATA and such though.

 

Right, I missed the nuance of having just the vm disk on the external. Always better to spread the load across multiple drives.

 

Thanks Eru and Steve.

I just wrote a lengthy reply and then had it vanish, when I clicked submit. My visit had, without warning, timed out while I was writing. I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Best,

Joe Gelmis

 

Uhoh! I'll try and get back to you when you get the time to reply!