Isn't this supposed to work reliably?

No, really... I bought a TDK IndiDVD 420N DVD+R/+RW Burner because I wanted to get all my archival data packet-written onto a few large DVDs, take them w. me when I travel to places that only have internet cafe's, and be done w. it. It came w. InCD. I've been thrilled w. Nero products until recently. Since then, there have been nothing but troubles w. every version of InCD I've tried. Including 4.0.1.21. I won't go into all the details - varying readability/compatability between versions. The "eject in compatability mode" checkbox that disappeared in later versions. The disks dying during a power off or forced reboot because the table isn't written yet.

But here's my question... Aren't these disks supposed to be readable in ordinary DVD-ROM drives? Mine won't even read in the exact same TDK drive when InCD isn't installed. I thought the point was to packet-write DVD+RW discs in such a way that they serve as archival disks that can be accessed in ordinary DVD drives. Mine don't get recognized in a Sony DVD-ROM drive either.

If packet writing in the InCD manner is only readable in the *same drive* running the *same version* of InCD, then what use is it for archival purposes really? Archives need, above all else, to be in a form that are accessible.

And they should quit saying you can write to the disk like a floppy. At least I can leave a floppy in the drive during shutdown.

Please overlook my frustration. It was a big investment for me to buy a drive that is starting to look worthless for my purpose.

Hello Asher and welcome to this forum.

Looks like you have been very unlucky with packet writing so far, so let's clarify what InCD is supposed to provide you thus what should work and what should not.

Read and write compatibility between version 3.x and 4 have to work. If you have a problem here, please detail which versions to use and what steps to follow to get the issue.

The "eject in compatability mode" checkbox disappeared, true. But DVD+RW media burned by InCD 4 shall be readable on any OS capable of UDF natively (which is pretty large number of OS).

"The disks dying during a power off or forced reboot because the table isn't written yet.": With InCD 4, table is updated at the end, when writes on files are completed, so the table does not look to contain information that are not yet here, and will never be here in case of a surprize power off. As the disc integrity will be open, meaning that something suddenly stopped the write, the media should be mounted on read-only mode next time, so you can back-up the data that are not corrupted and re-format the disc (to start again from a clean state). The disc should not "die", except if the power off or reboot occured exactly at the time the recorder laser was written the packets of the UDF structures, which is really very exceptionnal and unlucky.

To your question:
"Aren't these disks supposed to be readable in ordinary DVD-ROM drives? " That's right, they are readable in ordinary DVD-ROM drives as long as the OS have a native UDF reader (by example NT 4.0 does not have native UDF reader, but Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 do).

"Mine won't even read in the exact same TDK drive when InCD isn't installed." This is not normal. Can you precise the conditions (OS, fw revision, other software installed, steps done after formatting the media, ...)?

"If packet writing in the InCD manner is only readable in the *same drive* running the *same version* of InCD" Of course not!

"At least I can leave a floppy in the drive during shutdown."

Well that's should definitively be the case with InCD DVD-RW as well. At least our QA test lab do that without problem. [?]

(in reply to Asher)

Compatable in "ordinary drives" in my book includes audio CD players in stereos and cars and MP3 capable readers in portables and cars.

I used Direct CD for years and it worked fine. Treat CD like drive and finalize for ANY drive compatibility.

Upgraded from S&F 4x to LiteOn 52x and installed InCD 3x but upgraded to 4 and MR.

Now I only get 500 meg on an 74min disc and forget about audio CD's the way I see it.

All I want is complete compatility with ALL CD drives for -r and -rw media with the ability to treat the CD as a drive and NOT waste 25% of the CD's capacity.

Maybe I want too much - but didn't we put a man on the moon?
Tom

(in reply to Asher)

> Compatable in "ordinary drives" in my book includes audio CD players in stereos and cars and MP3 capable readers in portables and cars.

Ah ok. Audio CD player will not be able to read even DCD "compatible" medias. And yes, this is true, InCD 4 medias will not be possible to read in MP3s capable readers (except maybe some DVD-reader as they do UDF but I guess they did not push the UDF reading capability up to seek mp3 files on a UDF volume ). Maybe a future feature?

> Now I only get 500 meg on an 74min disc and forget about audio CD's the way I see it.

This is fixed in version 4.0.1.21 which is currently available on the web. (see http://www.nero.com)

Edit: Wait... 503 Mb, I think this is already the right size of a packet-writing formated CD-RW, isn't? You have more with DirectCD???

> All I want is complete compatility with ALL CD drives for -r and -rw media with the ability to treat the CD as a drive

-r is not supported by InCD 4. I think that for the usage you like to have you should either use NeroExpress to burn ISO compilations (these you can use everywhere), or switch to DirectCD.

> Maybe I want too much - but didn't we put a man on the moon?

Well, honestly I do not think there is a patent on walking on the moon (to be checked) but unfortunately there *is* a patent on writing on -r medias.

(in reply to Asher)