I have heard about something called Mt.Rainier CD-R/W. What exactly does this mean and why is it different?
[bold]"..Mount Rainier enables native OS support of data storage on CD-RW. This makes the technology far easier to use and allows the replacement of the floppy. This is done by having defect management in the drive, by making the drive 2k addressable, by using background formatting, and by standardizing both command set and physical layout. The new standard is promoted by Compaq, Microsoft, Philips, and Sony and is supported by over 40 industry leaders: OS vendors, PC-OEM's, ISV's, chip makers, and media makers.."[/bold] The most important advantage is the ease of use of this new format. It is of course already possible to 'drag & drop' files on a CD-RW disc using packet writing software but before you can do this, the disc has to be formatted (which takes a lot of time) and you need to have third party software installed to be able to write the discs. With Mt. Rainier it's possible to write and read from a brand new CD-RW disc within one minute, eliminating the formatting delays and the need for third party software. Unlike conventional CD-RW drives, Mt. Rainier-compliant CD-MRW drives also support defect management. This means that when the program tries to write to a sector on the disc which turns out to be a 'bad' sector, that sector will be hidden and spare sectors will be used instead. So unlike normal packet writing, the error handling is done by the drive itself (hardware) instead of by the software. Have a great day !
