How to burn an image on the data side of a CD?

Greninji88 · Mar 21, 2026

Hi!

I've seen a few guides on burning an image on a CD surface (data side), but couldn't get it to work for me.

Could anyone help? I followed this guide and used ImgBurn instead of cdrtools. https://www.instructables.com/Burning-Pictures-on-a-Compact-Disc-Surface/

Thank you!!

SylverReZ · Mar 21, 2026

Arduinocelentano has wrote a piece of software that lets you burn physical images onto the data side of a CD on any drive, but you might have to experiment with the parameters in the software as not every CD is listed to properly adjust the dimensions; I recommend testing this with a CD-RW. There's already a compiled build for Windows in the 'Releases' section.

https://github.com/arduinocelentano/cdimage

Greninji88 · Mar 21, 2026

SylverReZ said:
Arduinocelentano has wrote a piece of software that lets you burn physical images onto the data side of a CD on any drive, but you might have to experiment with the parameters in the software as not every CD is listed to properly adjust the dimensions; I recommend testing this with a CD-RW. There's already a compiled build for Windows in the 'Releases' section.

https://github.com/arduinocelentano/cdimage

Yeah, I've been using that. Re-read and testing with it set to AUDIO. What would I change the parameters too? Is using ImgBurn fine?

Edit: No result again when using AUDIO. It has lines around the the whole CD now though. Not at all close to the image though

hippy dave · Mar 21, 2026

Oh that sounds like bonkers fun. If I can get the only ancient laptop in the house with an optical drive working, I might play with this.

Greninji88 · Mar 21, 2026

hippy dave said:
Oh that sounds like bonkers fun. If I can get the only ancient laptop in the house with an optical drive working, I might play with this.

Nice! If it works it'll be so cool!! Let me know how you go

AncientBoi · Mar 21, 2026

Ya know, I actually read the whole article [grr], Though he says you may use any cdrw drive, I think it would be better To Know What He Was Using, since in his article, I believe he even mentioned others having problems achieving it. :teach:

Also, the Size of the image might come into play.

Just food for thought on that

Greninji88 · Apr 3, 2026

hippy dave said:
Oh that sounds like bonkers fun. If I can get the only ancient laptop in the house with an optical drive working, I might play with this.

Any luck?

AmeliaFox · Apr 3, 2026

You might be better just getting some litescribe cd's and a compatible burner. Nero used to be able to do them but there's also this software here: https://lightscribesoftware.org/lightscribe-system-software/

Greninji88 · Apr 3, 2026

Yes, but I'm pretty sure LightScribe only burned onto the display side, not the data side of a CD/DVD. I don't mind using the LightScribe way, but I would need to purchase the discs (I have compatible burners), whereas this method should work without anything special (if we get it to work).

hippy dave · Apr 3, 2026

PoliDante said:
Any luck?

I've got as far as digging out my 20 year old laptop to see if the optical drive works - so far it seems to like audio CDs and data DVDs but not data CDs. Haven't tried burning anything yet.

Bigger issue, I don't have any better solution for the discussed problem of different CDs needing different geometry settings. I couldn't find the list of known ones, is there a link?

Greninji88 · Apr 3, 2026

hippy dave said:
I've got as far as digging out my 20 year old laptop to see if the optical drive works - so far it seems to like audio CDs and data DVDs but not data CDs. Haven't tried burning anything yet.

Bigger issue, I don't have any better solution for the discussed problem of different CDs needing different geometry settings. I couldn't find the list of known ones, is there a link?

Oh ok

...

The known geometry settings can be viewed on the program linked in the first post.

How to burn an image on the data side of a CD?

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