Big Whoops on Burning

[babylon5guy]

Hi,
I was helping a friend install XP, she backed up her files on a CD-R. After we get XP all installed I discover she has formated the CD-R as CD-RW and drag and dropped her files to this CD. Will this be readable with something? She used the software that came with her Plextor drive Easy CD Creator version 4.1. Of course that won't install with XP. I took it home and cannot read it with Nero. Plextor told her they won't give her an updated version and to use the writer software in XP, and if she wants to recover it to reinstall 98 and reload the software? What? Some support heh? Anyone any Ideas?
TIA

[TwoRails]

Hi babylon5guy,

I use to do that on purpose, and didn't have a problem.... (for permentent things like tax records and the like, when I didn't have enough to fill up the CD). I don't have any of those old CD around for testing... but I'd think they should still be readable with anything that would normally read a CD RW.

HTH

TwoRails

[bailey]

if when she closed the session to be read on any cd drive it should work, is it possible that it was formatted for multisession and not closed.

[babylon5guy]

Hi TwoRails, well I couldn't read it with Nero's RW function. She has a friend with Win98 and the same version of Easy CD Creator, so we'll see what happens.

Hi bailey, she formatted the CD-R like a CD-RW, I don't know if you have the option of closing the session, if you do have the option she probably left it open, I'll ask her.

[reboot]

If you format a CDR, it's done. You can't add stuff after it's formatted, because a CDR can only be used once, and the formatting was that "once".
Are you sure she got data on it at all?

[babylon5guy]

Thanks reboot that's what I thought maybe going on. After a format I also thought you couldn't do anything else. I just called her she said she did definately formatted it, and left the session open? I didn't even know you could do that. What was strange is she said she saw files going to the CD, and saw them in explorer however I bet she was looking at Easy CD Creator's file system that looks like explorer. But when she closed the whole thing down the files were gone, when we tried to read them in XP.

[reboot]

Yup. She formatted a CDR, and then saw the files going through EZCD's interface, not explorer, or saw them going into the XP temp (hold for burning) file, from storage.
No files ever got burned.
Politely inform her that she doesn't need to format a CDR before using it, they come "pre-formatted". ;)

[babylon5guy]

Thanks Jim that clears it up. I did inform her of that. She picked using her writer for the first time to do this critical stuff and got burned. I did show her one time how to do it but I guess it didn't sink in. She picked Direct Cd and got confused, I bet she won't do that again!

[glc]

Wait a minute - you CAN format a CDR with DirectCD just like a CDRW and add files till it's full - you just can't erase it, delete files, or reformat it - and when you are done, you CAN convert it to a standard multisession CDR and close it. That CD should be able to be read in a burner in a machine that has DirectCD or any other packet writer that's UDF-compatible installed.

[babylon5guy]

Wow thanks glc I'll tell her, she left the session open though does that make a difference?

[babylon5guy]

Well an update on this, I just talked to her, she had a friend with the same OS and Direct CD version as she had when she made the CD and they couldn't read it either, she must have corrupted it somehow, or not closing the session did it.

[reboot]

glc (and others)...let me get this straight...
You can format a CDR, which involves burning the whole disk, and then burn data over top of it???
Tell me you mean CDRW...
I think we're in a terminology kerfuffle here.
A CDR can only be burned once, and "formatting" is burning to create the format on the disk. It's done. Period.

[glc]

http://support.gateway.com/s/SOFTWARE/misc/Roxio/7511371/7511371faq5.shtml

I didn't think I was hallucinating - we used to do this all the time with DirectCD 2.5 and a Ricoh 2x drive years ago, using Windows Explorer was a lot easier than dealing with EZCD Creator 3.5 which coastered about 50% of the time. Drag and drop, leave as is, write some more, etc., and when we were done, close the CD. Of course, this is when blank CDR's were $5 each and CDRW's were $20 each - and the 2x drive (SCSI) cost us $400.

InCD won't format a CDR though - only CD-RW's.

B5guy: Take a close look at the CD - see if you can see the slight color difference between the burned and non-burned area on it. If you can't, it may not have burned at all. Have her friend try to add one file to it with Windows Explorer - and if it works, eject it and close the CD and see what you have.

I don't know if it's in the newer versions, but Adaptec/Roxio used to have a "Scandisk" for CDR/RW as part of the package - you can also try that and see what it comes up with.

[babylon5guy]

Thanks glc, I tell her I hope she didn't throw it out.