Why requireing Full Erase?

[blutach]

Trying to burn a normal DVD ISO onto an RW (RICOHJPN W11-01). ImgBurn tells me I need to format the disk first. I say OK and it goes to full format.

 

OK, so I pop in another (blank) RW this time and it tells me the same thing. I then try a quick erase from the tools menu and ImgBurn says I gotta do a full format first.

 

DVDs (quick) erased just fine in Ner0 and burned there too.

 

Any ideas what's going on?

 

Regards

Edited May 7, 2006 by blutach

[LIGHTNING UK!]

They lie to you!

 

A quick erase on such media is just a 'Write' of the first 500 - 800 sectors with a bunch of zeroes.

 

You can't 'Write' to a brand new +RW without formatting it, that's just the way they work. If you try, the drive will error out.

 

All those programs are doing is starting off a full format but not waiting for the background part of it to finish - hence the format is actually left in limbo and your disc never reaches the 'Formatted: Yes' state like it should do.

 

As I've said many many times, you should only need to do a full format once (to get it in that 'Formatted: Yes' state - as reported in info window on the right) and then you can just overwrite the data on it each time.

[blutach]

Thanks for the response LUK! but these are not brand new DVDs.

 

Are you saying that I should do a full format anyway (they are supposed to be preformatted)? I guess that's no big deal to do.

 

I do wonder why Ner0 wrote the image successfully though.

 

Regards

[LIGHTNING UK!]

No, they're not preformatted. Don't confuse them with floppy discs!

 

I've made imgburn get the disc into the real formatted state before it just allows direct overwrite, that's all.

 

It's totally down to the programmer if you leave it in limbo or not, I chose not to.

 

You should always do one full format in a program that waits for the background part of the format process to finish (i.e. ImgBurn), or set it going and then wait 15 - 20 mins in a program that doesn't.

Only then will they really register as being fully formatted.

 

During the background format process, the drive will probably NOT appear to be doing anything. Some may flash the led once in a blue moon but again, that's down to whoever makes them and each drive is different.

[blutach]

Appreciate the info LUK!. Formatting RWs now!

 

Regards