I've had a difficult time with Rewritable Media for over 2 months.  In the beginning, it was that my Win2000 (SP4) machine wouldn't recognize the CD-RW media in the drive, but that got (sort of) "solved" by running InCD and using the Nero ASPI.  Now (sometimes) I can get the media recognized by Win2000, and have been able to burn (and then read) the copy.

But it "feels" wrong, because it is inconsistant.  Sometimes either Nero or Alcohol will report a "successful" burn, but then I can't read the data in Windows.  It's been annoying, but for the most part functional.

A recent experience has happened which has sort of "brought things to a head".  I had a copied Win2000 Installation disk fail to do a repair install on another computer.  Since it had SP4 and some hotfixes slipstreamed into it (using nLite), and nLite is still in beta, my thought was that the hotfix slipstreaming might have caused the Installation Disk to fail.  So I thought I would make another copy, only this time with only SP4 slipstreamed, and I left out the hotfixes.

Ran nLite fine with no problems, and used Nero to burn the image on the CD-RW that had the original Win2000 with both SP4 and the hotfixes.  Which also seemed to go fine.  But when I went to use the disk, the CD-RW would not be recognized by the computer.

This event has created a lot of questions, and I would be very appreciative if someone could help me learn about this aspect of CD burning, as it is of great interest (and usefulness) to me.

First, did the fact that I had a bootable image burned to the CD-RW mean that I could not re-use that disk ever again.  Since I tried burning Win2000 a second time, I am not able to get ANY file on that disk to be recognized by Windows.  But both Nero and Alcohol have (apparantly) "successfully" burned files to the media; Windows just doesn't seem to see the disk.

Is the disk permanently "ruined" ?  If so, why ?

I've seen a button on Nero that seems to "close" a "multi-session" disk.  I didn't select it, but did Nero "close" it anyways.  Was it because it was a "bootable image" ?

And what is this "closing" all about ?  Is it always permanent ?  Can it be permanently turned off in Nero ?

Also, I've heard about using InCD to "format" a CD.  Do you only do this to CD-RW media, or can you also do it to non-rewritables ?  (It doesn't really make sense to me, but I need to ask in order to give a sense of what I do and do not know.)

Also the "finished product" of an InCD format is (I think) around 500 Meg.  Where did the other 300 Meg of space go ?

Is an InCD format "permanent", so that you can never "unformat" the disk and use it like it was first purchased ?

Any other help and advice would be greatly appreciated, as well as any help in answering questions I should have asked, instead of what I have listed here.

Also, I would like to say that most of what I know already about CD's and burning I have learned here on this forum and for that I am very grateful.

Thanks again, and thanks in advance,

Billy

Most times InCD causes some of this problems.

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

(in reply to Antonio)

I am noticing that there doesn't seem to be much "responsiveness" to this thread, and I am wondering if it is because I did something wrong.  Is the post too large, with too many questions ?  Did I post it in the wrong forum ?

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

well i dont know about  incd but i have been using nero 6.0 for so long wothout any problems.why dont u try that.

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

well coming to cd-rws u may try erasing and reusing them.

(in reply to pavan_1981)

As most amatuer users when I started recording discs I chose the InCD method because I found it easier than the others. I had problems in erasing or formatting a disc, discs weren't identified from my system or sometimes from other drives, maybe due to InCD format etc. After reading for a while this forum, before register, I found some very helpful infos and one of them is never trust InCD. Afterwards I register myself in order to share my very short experience.

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

I took one of the CD-RW's that I had thought was "bad" from the re-burning of Win2000 and did a "full erase" on it using Nero.  Then managed to burn a small file to the disk and it was recogonized by Nero.  (Didn't think to check to see if the file could be "seen" by Windows.)

Now I am burning an entire CD of files to the disk as a test, to see if the disk is fully-functional, and will verify that Windows can read them.  It seems the full erase has undone whatever problem happened to the disk.  But I would like to know the "why" of it.

Did burning a bootable image to the CD-RW do "something" (unusual) to the CD-RW.  If so, what was it.  And is doing a full-erase the way to "fix" it ?

Thanks in advance,

Bill

(in reply to Antonio)

After "successfully" burning a disk-full of "test files", NONE of the files can be seen in either Windows or Nero.

Very frustrating.

It appears that the "erase" function didn't work either, as the original single file that I added is listed in Windows, but can't be accessed.  This is very confusing, and I would appreciate any help in understanding what is happening here.

Thanks in advance
Billy

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

You could well join the ranks of those who give up on CD-RW, because it can be so completely unreliable.

If the drive and media don't get on well together, it can become unusable after only one or two writes, if it even works at all.

InCD, DirectCD and several other tools that format the media, enable it to be used for packet write, drive letter access - the "lost" space goes on the formatting required to enable this. The way it is written, adds an extra layer of fragility to an already unreliable medium, especially as updating on a drive with poor compatibility with the media can lose everything.

The alternative is to use RW media of any type (CD-RW or DVD+/-RW) as a multisession erasable, writing multisession until full (don't just keep erasing t o write small amounts, as the life is determined by the most abused region of the media).

Erasing should enable it to be switched between InCD and Nero (Packet and "ordinary" writing).

The speed grades are another issue:
1. Low speed ... 1-4x and 2x
2. High speed ... 4-10x (also 4-8 & 4-12)
3. Ultra speed ... 16x-24x or 32x

You cannot use a higher speed grade than the drive supports - they are FIXED speeds determined by media construction, and 4x low / 4x high are completely different.

If you have lower speed media than the drive's maximum, some drives have excellent compatibility with lower speed media, some have miserable compatibility and some may not support it at all.

It's a lottery, do you feel lucky!

Having had severe problems my oldest drive, and doing only slightly better with the next one, I'm not very keen on CD-RW.

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

Thanks Matthew!

I've written many posts, and so I have full understanding of the amount of time it takes.  That with your obvious expertise makes your post truly valuable and for that I am sincerely grateful.

I not GLAD to know that there are many people that have "given up" on re-writable media, but I am glad to know that the whole endeavor is "tainted" by some level of popular belief.  This should prevent me from getting too extreme in my time expenditure in order to make it work.  In short, you have given permission for me to give-up, at some point.

Also, I had suspected the InCD format "ate" the media space, but have never had it confirmed by someone that actually knows for sure.

I've already "given up" on the idea of packet writing, as the unreliablity of it is documented well enough for even me to find out about it.  And InCD's unreliability is also well-documented, so I do not use it either.

But I had hoped that re-writable media was going to be my salvation, and now you are telling me that even THAT cannot be relied upon.

quote:

If the drive and media don't get on well together, it can become unusable after only one or two writes, if it even works at all.

I think my situation may be different than most in that the CDRW I am using is fairly old (a Sony CRX175A1), which runs at 24X10X40X.  It's reliable for the most part, and I have no reason to believe that it may be contributing to the overall "unreliabilityness" of the methods I am using, but I though I would mention it in case you have an opinion.

Also, I have learned (the hard way) that the media is important.  I buy my stuff at Wal-Mart, and they only have a limited selection.  Originally I thought that "newer" would be better, so I bought the best media they had, Memorex Ultraspeed 24X.  It wouldn't work at all.
So then I tried the slower Memorex High-Speed 12X, and it wouldn't work either.

Finally I tried the slowest stuff Wal-Mart had, Sony 1-2-4X.  It was also the cheapest.  At about $1.00/disk, it was comparable to some of the CD-R's Wal-Mart sells.  Also it has the same word on it as my CDRW ("Sony"), so I hoped the CD-Burning Gods might like that.

For the most part, I get "okay" results with this, but the whole thing fell apart when I tried to re-burn a bootable disk, as I described above.  So if I can get a handle on making that specific aspect of CD-Burning functional, my problems should be for the most part solved.

quote:

I had a copied Win2000 Installation disk fail to do a repair install on another computer.  Since it had SP4 and some hotfixes slipstreamed into it (using nLite), and nLite is still in beta, my thought was that the hotfix slipstreaming might have caused the Installation Disk to fail.  So I thought I would make another copy, only this time with only SP4 slipstreamed, and I left out the hotfixes.

I am using re-writable media to transport data from one computer that has (high speed) internet access to another that does not.  We're in an apartment, so I don't want to wire-up the router we have, and I can't afford the 1 Gig thumbdrive I plan to buy yet.

So "hand-carrying" data (hotfixes, AV updates, etc..) using RW media is the main function I'm trying to refine.

quote:

You cannot use a higher speed grade than the drive supports - they are FIXED speeds determined by media construction, and 4x low / 4x high are completely different.

I didn't understand this part.  What is the difference between 4x "low", and 4x "high" ?

Thanks in advance,

Billy

(in reply to Matthew)

For posterity, I am posting this tad of information I just found regarding the "multisession" issue of CD-RW's.

Just now I found an option in Nero (the real one, not "Nero Express") where it gives you the option to (words to effect of) "Reopen last closed session".  It had a disclaimer that it may not work on all disks, but it does indicate that the "closing" of a multisession disk is (at least in theory) not permanent, but can be undone.

Maybe.

Still hoping to find a guru to answer all my questions.  Any help much appreciated.

Billy

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

I've been browsing around my (suspected) "Bad" CD and have discovered something very, very weird.

I have tried to burn and erase many things to this disk, and have never gotten a clear sense of "cause & effect", but now I am seeing something that is blowing my mind.

At one time, I had copied about 20 audio files to the CD-RW, and it has been erased several times since then.  Now all of the sudden I can "see" these files in Windows (when I didn't used to be able to).  Which is weird enough, but I CAN'T "see" a file I just burned to the disk a few minutes ago.

But when I explore the disk in Nero Express as a "Data" disk, I can see the new file I just burned, but I can't see the 20 or so audio files that I CAN see in Windows.

WTF ! ! ! ? ? ?

Instinctively I know there is a "rhyme and reason" to this, but have absolutely no idea how to perceive this situation.  If anyone could help, I would really appreciate it.

Billy

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

Referring to this point, posted by myself (above):

quote:

Just now I found an option in Nero (the real one, not "Nero Express") where it gives you the option to (words to effect of) "Reopen last closed session".  It had a disclaimer that it may not work on all disks, but it does indicate that the "closing" of a multisession disk is (at least in theory) not permanent, but can be undone.

I'm looking at it right now, so I can give more specific detail regarding this feature.  I just burned an image of WinXP to a Sony CD-RW (4X), and decided to see if I could erase it.  Rather than trying Nero Express to erase, I selected (full blown) Nero and found the button under (Nero)>Recorder>Erase Rewritable Disk>(Under select-tab "Select the erase method to be used)>Unclose the last session.

I think I am going to try that on my newly-burned CD-RW and see what happens.  I don't know if the fact that I burned an image of a bootable CD (WinXP) automatically means the session was "closed" or not.  (I wasn't given an opportunity to select it or not, and I was watching for it.)  If anyone can offer some information it would be appreciated.

EDIT***
Also thought I should mention another thought I had which was, as speed is a factor in how successful a BURN to a CD-RW may be, I am wondering if the ERASE speed might also be important.  For now I am selecting "2X" as Nero's "erase speed" (instead of 4X, my only other alternative), in the hopes that I can gain some reliability here and can then go looking for some good "trial and error" experiences to learn from.

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

Memorex! ugh! puke!

My old 2x drive could not handle them - couldn't handle many, actually... the only media it was really ok with, were Traxdata 2x.

The 1-4x Memorex revived and worked in the next drive, though that supported high speed. So I got some high speed memorex, (4-10x) and they failed miserably.
So I tried Traxdata 10x, and they worked, but the error rate was rather spiky.

On my next drive, the 4-10x memorex worked like a dream, at 12x.
For this Ultra speed drive, I picked up a cheap 5x of Imation 16-24x - turned out to be the same code as the well respected Verbatim, and worked excellently.

Actually, if you want a consistent media brand, I'd say Verbatim is definitely one to look at.

Up to my latest drives, pulled out an old Philips 1-4x, just to write some take away test utilities to (only one I could find), my DVR-109 choked on it, but the Liteon 5232k (external firewire cased) handled it perfectly.


Hence I always say, if you find a RW media that does work well, get enough of it to last the drive's lifetime!


I'd call a 1-4x at 4x "4x low", and a 4-10x at 4x "4x high".
You cannot run a high speed media in a low speed, maximum 4x drive, as the calibration is completely different.
In the reverse case, some high speed drives lack low speed support, and cannot use a low speed media at 4x.

If the drive offers 2x, then it does cover low speed, but any drive which only specifies 4x as a minimum, may not support low speed media, even at 4x.

(in reply to Billy_Brethren)

You've validated an idea that I've already learned by practical experience, in that the Sony 4X is about the only CD-RW media I've found (at Wal-Mart) that will work (more or less) reliably with my slow 4X CD-RW burner.

Also, I agree with the Verbatim opinion.  I've played around with burning DVD's and have found Verbatim to work well with that.  (I lent my BenQ1620 to a friend and never got it back, hence the crappy CD-RW I am now saddled with for a while...)

But they don't sell Verbatim at Wal-Mart. 

Lately I've been reading about certain other aspects of rewritable media and Nero.  Read a bit today about "tracks" and "formats".  Seems like this could get really complicated.  It had to do with multisession disks, and whether to close them or not.  And also whether or not you could "open" a closed disk.  Apparantly you can, the issue is whether the data is rendered useless or not.

All of this goes to the idea of "ruining" a CD-RW.  I have managed to bring a CD-RW disk "back from the dead" by erasing it and/or opening the closed session.  I don't know exactly what I did or how, but I just kept after it until it gave up and started working again.  It was the bootable Win2000 disk I mentioned at the beginning of the post, which has now been successfully erased and is back into use as a data transporter.

My theory at this point is the issue of opening a closed session.  I do think that creating a bootable CD automatically closes the session, but have not found anything to substantiate this theory.  And so in order to successfully "blank" a "closed" CD-RW, you have to open the session first.  If anyone has a better or more informed opinion on this, I'd be glad to hear it cause at this point I'm just making things up as I go along.

Also, I think it matters how fast you erase the CD-RW.  I had one instance where a bunch of data survived a fast erase (I mean a full-erase at 4X), but the data was erased at 2X.  At least I THINK that's what happened, as I do a lot of stuff first, and THEN evaluate what I did and make up my theories.

As even the most disinterested of observers can plainly see, I am clearly whizzing in the breeze here, and so any help or information would be greatly appreciated.  At this time I am looking for some kind of on-line CD-RW media "primer", so if anyone has a link I would really appreciate it.

Billy

(in reply to Matthew)