Levies today are assessed on recordable compact discs, a form of media that did not exist when levies were first conceived.

They can also make life easier for digital photographers, video editors or anybody else who needs to stash big files on a recordable disc.

In 1988, the Tandy Corporation announced plans for a recordable compact disc called Thor, but it encountered technical problems and has yet to introduce the product.

But the era of recordable discs is coming, too.

Moving files over a network or with recordable discs and drives are other methods for transferring your files to the Vista PC as well.

For recordable discs, the process is permanent and the media can be written to only once.

A DVD+R is a recordable optical disc.

Like the LP's of old, recordable compact discs have surfaces that are easily scratched.

Recording layer - A thin coating of dye on recordable discs, or a sandwich of metals for rewriteable discs.

Other options include backing up to a recordable compact disc or even just making copies of vital documents on diskettes or Zip disks.