A bit of a problem here. I can´t burn CD-RWs with my CD-RW drive. After clicking "Write" in Nero it says that the recorder requires a CD-R/CD-RW and then ejects the RW-disc. And this is after I´ve formated the disc. I can use the disc as "a large floppy disc" though, but in this case my friend can´t read the disc with his -RW-drive. Information: Burner- Lite-On 24x 10x 40 Disc: TDK 700MB CD-RW 10x Software: Nero 5.5.4.2 bundled and InCD I have very little experience in burning CD-RWs so any advice on what causes the problem would be apreciated.
Are you using DirectCD software? It's always a very postential cause for problems. To read UDF formatted CD-RWs ('large floppies'), the computer needs to have UDF reader software.
In that case, your friend needs InCD too, to read your "mega floppy". On the other hand, if you want to burn audio, or data as regular CD ROM, you need to erase your formatting first, so that the CD is a regular blank again.
1) You can burn a CD-RW disc without formatting 2) When you want to burn on it again, you must first erase the disc (many software can do this) and then it's usable again.
But you can only erase it comletely. If you want to select some files to erase, and some to keep, you must format it first.
How do I erase the formating? Isn´t formating kind of the same thing as formatting? "If you want to select some files to erase, and some to keep, you must format it first" Doesn´t it erase eveything if I format the disc?
There should be an selection in one of the pull down menus that says erase CD. Use this to black the CDRW and remove the formatting. You can now burn to the CDRW like a regular CDR.
Ok, one more question, then I should be happy. Nero has two selections when erasing a CD-RW: Complete and Quick. They seem to have the same efect, the disc is completly empty after the process. The complete version though takes 10 minutes compared to the quick´s 1 minute. So, is there, in your experience, any difference?
Quick erase may not completely remove everything from the disc, whereas a Full erase will. Full erase take's longer, but at least you'll know that the disc will be completely empty.
But if my drive says that the disc has 0 bytes on it, isn´t it empty then? I just happened to read your post on the "Burning a 700 MB Cd-RW"-post just before this one, andavari, so does it efect the lifespan depending on what erasing-method you use? I´ve only got one CD-RW so that´s why I´m beeing this curious.
The reason I only perform the slower full/complete erase option which takes approximately 39 minutes on my 4X drive is because about 1 1/2 years ago I learned a lesson the hard and unrecoverable way. I lost over half of a CD because I didn't want to wait a few extra minutes. Now imagine re-downloading about 350MB-400MB of programs and 999 trillion Microsoft security updates within 2 weeks on a 56K dialup...errgh.
Sometimes after a quick erase, the program did not recognize the CD RW. I had then to full erase it in order to get it recognized.
The full erase should whipe all the data off the CDRW. The quick erase just erases the directory off the CDRW but leaves the data and formatting. Without the directory it appears blank and it just witten over when you put new stuff on it. You could still recover some of the data with the right utility if it hasn't been written over yet. Quick should usually work just fine unless you worried about someone recovering the old data.
OK, I´ll stick to "Quick" for most of the time. It´s disturbing waiting for the erasing to be completed, plus the burning process, which only is at 10x. Then again, I don´t use CD-RWs very often.
I might add that if you put important info on CDRW's make sure you keep them clean and scratch free. I've lost a few by not doing so.
That goes for all CDs. I hate it when I borow a CD from the library and it´s full of scrathes, which usually leads to some really bad audio.
