Prob with Mp3 files showing up as .cda files

Need some help
Recently mp3 files on cd’s I put in my box have started showing up as .cda files that are 1 kb big.
I cannot transfer these to an mp3 player nor copy them to a cd.
My older music files still remain as mp3’s.
What has happened? And what must I do to once again read these as mp3’s?

Thanks for any help

I’m a little confused. Do you mean that you burnt .mp3 files onto CDRom in .mp3 format (not audio CD) and now the files are showing up as .cda files?

Also, you didn’t mention if the CD’s would indeed play. Does the disc work in another player besides your computer?

Furthermore, have you installed a new burner, burning software,codec, or audio player recently?

It sounds like you burned those MP3s to an audio CD. Those .cda files are only supposed to be on audio CDs. To see if that’s the case, you can try putting the CD into a regular old CD player/Discman.

You can’t copy those .cda files to your hard drive, but I’m pretty sure double-clicking them will open up the audio track in WMP/Winamp. If you just want to play the music on your computer, you can just play the CD as an audio CD. If you want the MP3 files so that you can transfer them around, put them on an MP3 player, etc. you’ll either have to re-rip them or find the originals on your hard drive. If you re-rip them, though, the quality will stink.

.CDA files are not, strictly speaking, files at all. Taken more accurately they resemble Microsoft’s shortcut files in that they point to information rather than containing it themselves. In the case of a shortcut, this means a pointer to a file somewhere on your computer, a .CDA file serves the same purpose for an audio CD and simply points to the track and sector on a disc where a song begins.

When you browse an audio CD using Windows, you’ll notice that it appears to contain a directory of .CDA files and double-clicking on any given file will play the relevant track. Copy the file to your hard disc and then remove the CD, however, and it’s a different story. At best, the player will report that the relevant CD is not present; at worst it will play from the same point on whatever CD happens to be in the drive at the time.

You can’t just copy and paste CDA Files from an audio cd. They are just little files telling computers and audio players where the data on the CD is located. You have to Digitally extract the informaiton using a utility such as DMC Audio CD Input.

If the files were not dragged and dropped from the cd to the hard drive then it may be that the cda files on the hard drive are not really cda files after all. If that is the case, there may be a way to convert the tracks on the hard drive without having to rip them again.

Hope this helps.

You can convert that CD Audio to WMA or MP3 by Windows Media Player, just place the CD to the CD tray then open Windows Media Player (9 or newest), then click the Button RIP…So, please see the right-top of that screen you will see the button “Record”…click there, that’s all.

OK…thanks…so far.
Let me clarify as much as I can. And I really do not know much about this stuff.

For some reason my computer is showing music files- mp3 files - as .CDA. I know what these are.

  1. Why has this started to occur?
  2. How can I stop this from happening?

Because of this, I can no longer drag these files into my boys Mp3 player like I previously could.

I use a variety of media/music/mp3 players in my computer. Nero(Nero 6 Ultra), WinMedia Player(currently 10.00.00.4019), WinAmp(5.20 - not the latest, by choice), JetAudio and I think 1 more or so.

I just want to drag these files into an MP3 player like I previously did. But since they started showing up as .CDA files I can’t do that.
And yes, these cd’s played in the car and on my home CD player.
Thanks for the help.

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]OK…thanks…so far.
Let me clarify as much as I can. And I really do not know much about this stuff.

For some reason my computer is showing music files- mp3 files - as .CDA. I know what these are.

  1. Why has this started to occur?
  2. How can I stop this from happening?

Because of this, I can no longer drag these files into my boys Mp3 player like I previously could.

I use a variety of media/music/mp3 players in my computer. Nero(Nero 6 Ultra), WinMedia Player(currently 10.00.00.4019), WinAmp(5.20 - not the latest, by choice), JetAudio and I think 1 more or so.

I just want to drag these files into an MP3 player like I previously did. But since they started showing up as .CDA files I can’t do that.
And yes, these cd’s played in the car and on my home CD player.
Thanks for the help.[/quote]

So what you’re saying is that you know for a fact that these are mp3 files, but for some reason the extension has changed? If you change the extension back to mp3, what happens?

You put mp3s on an audio CD that you can play in a CD player, but you can’t take the mps3 off again. That’s because you’ve burnt it as an audio CD, the software convert the mp3s to CD Audio format (.wav). You might want to make 2 cds, one as a Audio CD you can play in a CD player, one as a Data CD you can put mp3 files on.

You can get the mp3s from the cda by reripping the CD back to mp3, but you don’t want to convert between formats all the time, you’ll loose quality.

[quote=“irishstu”]So what you’re saying is that you know for a fact that these are mp3 files, but for some reason the extension has changed? If you change the extension back to mp3, what happens?[/quote]Irish -
Yeah. They are MP3 files.
I tried doing the extension change thing. Didn’t work. Just gave me songtitle.mp3.cda or something like that. Still only 1 kb big. So t still was not seeing the MP3 file.

[quote=“TainanCowboy”][quote=“irishstu”]So what you’re saying is that you know for a fact that these are mp3 files, but for some reason the extension has changed? If you change the extension back to mp3, what happens?[/quote]Irish -
Yeah. They are MP3 files.
I tried doing the extension change thing. Didn’t work. Just gave me songtitle.mp3.cda or something like that. Still only 1 kb big. So t still was not seeing the MP3 file.[/quote]

Ah. You need to make sure you can see the extension before you change it. (Sorry if you already know this). Go to the Control Panel, then Folder Options > View, now UNCHECK the option which says “Hide extensions for known file types”. NOW try changing the file extension.

P.S. It still sounds to me like all the others are right about these actually being audio files now, but feel free to try this option first.

[quote=“Big Fluffy Matthew”]You put mp3s on an audio CD that you can play in a CD player, but you can’t take the mps3 off again. That’s because you’ve burnt it as an audio CD, the software convert the mp3s to CD Audio format (.wav). You might want to make 2 cds, one as a Audio CD you can play in a CD player, one as a Data CD you can put mp3 files on.

You can get the mp3s from the cda by reripping the CD back to mp3, but you don’t want to convert between formats all the time, you’ll loose quality.[/quote]

What BFM said. You “accidently” burnt the mp3’s as an audio CD. You’ll have to rip them back off the CD as mp3s.

Most likely your home stereo’s CD player can’t play .mp3 files, can it? They must be on the disc as an audio CD.

[quote=“irishstu”]Ah. You need to make sure you can see the extension before you change it. (Sorry if you already know this). Go to the Control Panel, then Folder Options > View, now UNCHECK the option which says “Hide extensions for known file types”. NOW try changing the file extension.
P.S. It still sounds to me like all the others are right about these actually being audio files now, but feel free to try this option first.[/quote]Irish -
Thanks. I followed this suggestion and found that the UNCHECK option was UNCHECKED already.
Just too weird.
Moving thee things to the boys MP3 player is a bitch now for some reason.

TC, in that case I’m absolutely sure what has happened is that you have burnt these files (inadvertently) as audio files, and even though they might have been mp3s originally, your copying software has converted them to audio, to be placed on an audio CD.

Re-ripping them is the easiest (if not the only) solution that I can think of.

P.S. Even if the files are renamed, it should not change the filesize. 1kb is the size you would expect from a cda file, not an mp3.

I think the fact that everyone reckons it’s the same thing should tell you something.

FYI, some info from the interweb…

“Another place of confusion arises when people put a commercial audio CD in their CD-ROM drive. If you right click on “My Computer” on your Desktop, select “Open” and then right click on your CD-ROM drive and select “Open” you will see a window full of 1 KB files. The names will be Track01.cda, Track02.cda, etc. The CDA extension is not a true file format. It is just a way of referring to audio tracks. Only software that understands the true nature of the CDA extension, such as CD Recording software, will know how to properly handle it. To illustrate my point try copying or dragging and dropping a CDA type file onto your Desktop. Now right-click it and select “Properties”. Notice the file is only 44 bytes in size. Thus it is not the audio content data but it is also not a Windows shortcut. Close the “Properties” window. Now right-click the CDA file again and select either “Open” or “Play”. In each case you will get a dialog box that says “Can’t play CD track. CD tracks must be played from local CD drive.” Now if you go back to your original CD-ROM drive window, right-click any of those CDA files and select “Open” or “Play” the music will start playing.”

Irish -
This is it exactly.
This computeren thing is hard.

Thank all of you for your help & patience in sussing this out. I am going to try copying these files to my hard drive and see if this will allow me to drag 'n drop them into his MP3 player.
Thanks again.

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Thank all of you for your help & patience in sussing this out. I am going to try copying these files to my hard drive and see if this will allow me to drag 'n drop them into his MP3 player.
Thanks again.[/quote]But you can’t copy them, they aren’t even files. You need to rip the CD, trust me on this, I know what I’m doing, I’m a doctor.

[quote=“Big Fluffy Matthew”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]Thank all of you for your help & patience in sussing this out. I am going to try copying these files to my hard drive and see if this will allow me to drag 'n drop them into his MP3 player.
Thanks again.[/quote]But you can’t copy them, they aren’t even files. You need to rip the CD, trust me on this, I know what I’m doing, I’m a doctor.[/quote]Oy vey… :wall:

Well, TC? Any luck? We’re all waiting here… :stuck_out_tongue: