CD-RW packet writing SW

[xortam]

Does anybody know of a good UDF writer that supports ISO 9660 level 3 on Win98 and W2K? I just got done doing a full format/verify on my new Plextor and it took two hours to complete! I was hoping the new burner and W2K would speed up this process. I used Roxio's DCD 3.01e and it set the old Sony media at 2x. I still need to try the 3.03b update which may speed things up. I looked at CD Media World for some other SW. I'd appreciate if anybody can suggest some SW that is better than DCD.<hr><TABLE BGCOLOR=Aqua><TR><TD><Font-weight="+1"><font COLOR=Blue>^<font COLOR=Navy>¶@/\/\</font></Font-weight></TR></TD></TABLE>

[Paulr]

Hiya,
Just something you said in your post I want to pick up on:
"....and it set the old Sony media at 2x"

Do you mean that this ia an old Sony CD-RW?
Is it only validated to 2x writing?
With CDR's they are validated to certain speeds, however you can exceed these speeds.
I regularly write to 8x validated CDR's at 16x speed without any problems.
However CD-RW's are slightly different.
They have a small marker burnt into the primary track that actually only allows them to be written to at their validated speeds or slower.
Example, I have a Yamaha CDRW Drive and I'm using Windows 2000.
This drive can re-write up to 10x.
However, if I put in an old 2x validated Samsung CDRW disk in the system wont allow me to write to it any faster than 2x - it's the only option on the software.
I put in a Yamaha CDRW displaying the 'High Speed' logo and I can write to it at 10x.
Just a thought.

[xortam]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Paulr:
Hiya,
Just something you said in your post I want to pick up on:
"....and it set the old Sony media at 2x"

Do you mean that this ia an old Sony CD-RW?</font>

Yes, this is an old Sony CD-RW disc. Its about two years old and doesn't indicate any speed rating. Do you know of a utility that will display the speed rating marker value? This particular disc was unreadable from a prior attempt at reformatting with my defective Yamaha burner. I believe I used to be able to format the disc in about 1h30 but maybe there was some additional work done due to its current state. I forgot (this time) to do a clean erasure before reformatting.

I'm in the process of downloading Nero 5.5.2.3 which I believe includes the InCD UDF writer/reader (supports UDF 1.5).

[edit]
Corrected spelling: "disc", not "disk".
[/edit]


[This message has been edited by xortam (edited 07 June 2001).]

[xortam]

A good UDF writer anybody?

[EchoWars]

Using DirectCD 5. I generally avoid anything Adaptec, but after a lot of experimenting, it's the best thing for W2K, and so far has worked better than any packet-writer I've ever used (high-praise for a company that usually produces crap). There is also an update on the Roxio site the the original release of DCD5, and either the original install or the update I think insists that you are running WinOnCD. I run WinOnCD 8.0, so no problem here. The update also changes the language to German(!), but I figured out how to convert back to English...

[xortam]

So it looks like they bundled DCD into ECDC 5 Plantinum? Is that right? The last stand-alone DCD package looks to be 3.03 which is the version that I just updated.

There doesn't seem to be much competition for UDF writers. Funny since W2K has native UDF support.

[EchoWars]

Read someplace that Ver3 is the same as Ver5, only the interface was changes slightly. Doesn't it work OK for ya?

[xortam]

I've only used it on one old CD-RW so far (see first post). I'll check out the 10x Verbatim that came with the drive in a bit. I'm also interested in how my cheap "generics" (GQ, "Great Quality") and the "Smart and Friendly" discs work; I've got several dozen of them. They all worked before at 4x, which was the limit on my old Yamy. I'm pretty sure the Sony media worked at 4x as well but it may have been damaged during the demise of my Yamy. The Sony did format and pass ScanDisc on the new Plextor.

[DentyCracker]

I haven't packet written a CD in AGES. The main reason is that not all machines read packet written CDs well and I move my media around a lot. I have EzCD Creator 5.01 installed but haven't used DCD at all since I installed it.

[xortam]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by DentyCracker:
I haven't packet written a CD in AGES. The main reason is that not all machines read packet written CDs well and I move my media around a lot. I have EzCD Creator 5.01 installed but haven't used DCD at all since I installed it.</font>

So why did you waste your money on an -RW burner? I used -RWs quite a bit for backup (since my old DAT won't work on my P2B-S). I only had interest on using the media on a single machine. W2K has native UDF support so moving this data between machines should be a little easier now. Its easy enough to download a UDF reader for non-W2K boxes.

[EchoWars]

DCD5 automatically installs the UDF reader software on every disk you write to. So if you drag the disk to a machine that doesn't have a UDF reader, you are prompted to install one. Pretty handy...

[Wombat]

I always end up writing ISO's and closing the disc.

[EvilDonnyboy]

Funny nobody's mentioned InCD. It's free with a registered version of Nero.

[Greebe]

EDb... xortam's second post (third from top) mentions it.

[EchoWars]

Saw something a while (2 months or so ago...) about InCD not running in W2K, and Ahead was working on a patch. AFAIK, it never got done.