CD Backup

Restoring to CD

Inevitably, as sure as eggs is eggs, you will be called upon to restore a CD from your backup. This section attempts to explain the main methods which are at your disposal.

I will explain each method available, in order of preference (most preferential first).

Exact Audio Copy (EAC)

The easiest way, and the method that I use, is to use Exact Audio Copy to restore from your backup. If you have your read and write offsets set up correctly in Exact Audio Copy this will also ensure that you are making a bit-identical copy.

There are two other provisos that will determine whether you can use Exact Audio Copy to burn your CD.

1. You must have installed Monkey's Audio. It is not enough to have MAC.EXE on your PC (which is sufficient for my CD backup guide). I assume the installer must include a DLL that Exact Audio Copy uses to decompress the APE file on the fly
2. Exact Audio Copy must support your burner. The easiest way to determine this is to just give it a go

Beginning the Process

If you click the bottom icon, "WRI", (see image, right), to the left of the main Exact Audio Copy dialogue, you will open the "CD Layout Editor" (you can also select Tools > Write CD-R... from the menu, or press Alt+W, to open the dialogue).

From the menu select File > Load CUE Sheet.... Locate the cuesheet using the dialogue and click "Open" to load the cuesheet into the CD Layout Editor.

From the menu select CD-R > Write CD....

On the "CD Write Options" dialogue, select the speed you want to burn at, "No Test Write" for the Write mode (if you want to check that Exact Audio Copy (EAC) supports your burner you should first try "Only Test Write"), and "Close CD" for the Close mode.

Click "Make It So" to begin burning.

Burrrn

Burrrn is a frontend for the CDRDAO console application. It supports numerous file formats (including Monkey's Audio of course), can write CD-Text, and can handle Exact Audio Copy's noncompliant cuesheets. It also supports Foobar's playlist files.

Update: As of 1.14 beta Burrrn now supports embedded cuesheets for WavPack, Monkey's Audio, and FLAC files.

The author of Burrrn hopes to allow for write offsets, as per Exact Audio Copy, in the near future.

The installer for Burrrn will include all the necessary console applications required to decode various compressed audio formats, including MAC.EXE. These will be located in the Burrrn folder.

The first time you run Burrrn you will be asked to select the burner you wish to use. You can always change this at any time from the "General" tab in Settings.

Burrrn is cardware.

Beginning the Process

Drag the cuesheet file onto the track list area.

To select whether, or whether not, to write CD-Text, click "Settings", choose the "General" tab, and select or unselect the checkbox below the Writer dropdown.

Click "Burrrn" to begin burning.

burnatonce

burnatonce is also a frontend for the CDRDAO console application. Whereas Burrrn was written specifically to burn audio CDs from compressed audio files burnatonce will also burn data and create disc images (ISO; CUE/BIN; TOC/DAT).

burnatonce supports WAV, MP3, MP2, OGG and FLAC as standard. To add support for Monkey's Audio copy/move MAC.EXE to your "burnatonce\external" folder.

burnatonce is free for non-commercial use.

Beginning the Process

I can't appear to get burnatonce to work with an APE file, even with MAC.EXE in the "burnatonce\external" folder. It will recognise a CUE/WAV combination, and CUE/FLAC combination.

If anyone has any ideas what I may be doing wrong please let me know!

Update: It seems as though burnatonce needs to be updated to recognise the newer (3.98+) APE header format. The author is aware of this. Please see this forum thread for clarification.

Foobar

Yes, Foobar again. If you have Nero installed, and the Audio CD writer component, you can use Foobar to burn to CD.

Foobar is only third in the list as it relies on Nero, which is not freeware. However, it does have the benefit of built-in APE and CUE support over Nero stand-alone.

Setting up the Audio CD writer component

From the menu select Foobar2000 > Preferences.

From the treeview in the left pane, select Audio CD Writer.

The main areas to note here are the burner dropdown, and the location to write the image file (NRG), if you choose to burn to an image (Select "Image Recorder" from the "Device" dropdown). I don't use any DSP or Replay Gain settings in Foobar or Burrrn, as I like to burn the CD as it was extracted.

Beginning the Process

To burn in Foobar simply drag the CUE or APE into the playlist, select all tracks, right-click and select "Write Audio CD..."

Nero

Nero should need no introduction.

Nero can support Monkey's Audio files with the addition of a third party plugin. Mausau has various Nero audio plugins for download at http://neroplugins.cd-rw.org/. From here you can download nxmyape.zip. Follow the instructions on the website for installing the plugin (simply moving the DLL to a specific folder, depending on the version of Nero you are using).

Nero is a commercial product, although a trial version is available from their website.

Beginning the Process

From the menu select Recorder > Burn Image... and locate the cuesheet. The window will be populated by the individual tracks.

I have version 6.6.0.5 installed. It is possible that the process is a little different for earlier versions. The plugin will work for versions 5.5.9.0 and above, and any of these versions will be able to burn from a cuesheet (you just need to find out how).

Decoding to WAV

As a last resort you can always extract your cuesheet (if required), edit it to point to a WAV rather than an APE¹, decode your APE to WAV using MAC.EXE², and burn from the CUE/WAV in your burner application of choice.

¹ To edit the cuesheet simply edit the line:

FILE "CDImage.ape" WAVE

...to:

FILE "CDImage.wav" WAVE

² To decode your APE to WAV use the following command:

MAC.EXE "E:\CDBackup\Green Day\American Idiot\CDImage.ape" "E:\CDBackup\Green Day\American Idiot\CDImage.wav" -d

... or download my batch file, ape-decode.bat, edit the path to MAC.EXE, and drag the APE file onto the batch file icon. The WAV file will be created in the same folder as the APE file, with the same filename (but different extension). So, if your APE file has the path "E:\CDBackup\Green Day\American Idiot\CDImage.ape", it will be decompressed to "E:\CDBackup\Green Day\American Idiot\CDImage.wav"

What Now?

Read my accompanying guides:

• Using EAC, MAC, TAG and PAR2 To Back-Up a CD. This guide explains how to back-up your CDs using batch files to automate the process as much as possible
• Verifying and Repairing your compressed files. This guide explains how to verify the APE files using Monkey's Audio, and, if necessary, how to repair files using your PAR2 parity data
• Extracting the Cuesheet from the APEv2 tag. If you need to burn back to CD you will generally need an external cuesheet. This guide explains how you can retrieve the cuesheet from the compressed file's APEv2 tag.
• Transcoding from a compressed image file to individual track files, or another image file. Having all your CDs in compressed image format makes transcoding to other formats, e.g.: MP3, a walk in the park... if you like Foobar ;o)

The History

Thanks to Kevin Rebarchek for his questions via email, which prompted me to write this accompanying guide. It's pleasing to hear that someone has found my CD backup guide useful, and that they are actually thinking about the process as a whole. Please email me if you have found anything on this site useful.

Document Version History