[GLLUG] CD-R Problems

[C. Ulrich]

Ex Fed wrote:
> A group of my users has one machine with XP on it which can add to a
> CD-R disk over and over again.  It has no extra software or drivers
> loaded on it, other than those that came off of the Windows XP CD.

This is called packet writing.

> They have another machine with windows 2000 which has Direct CD 5 on
> it.  With this machine you can not add to the previously written CD-R
> mentioned above.  It indicates that the media can not be written to.  It
> can create CDs from files or copy CDs provided it is a blank CD-R

IIRC, DirectCD writes the data using the UDF filesystem, which is readable on
many operating systems including Linux (but not Windows, apparently, unless
DCD is installed).

Does have Win2k read the WinXP CD? I assu

> Why does the one machine allow us to write to the CD-R over and over
> again and the CD remains locked to the machine?
> 
> 
> Could it be a difference in the CD writer hardware specifications?

In all probability, it's yet another built-in feature of Windows that's
deliberately incompatible with the rest of the computing world. In the
interest of compatibility, you might consider figuring out how to disable XP's
packet writing feature and then installing DirectCD for XP if possible.

Wouldn't throw out that CD burner just yet. :)

--Charles Ulrich
-- 
http://bityard.net