Re: DVD-RAM drive -- can't burn?

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Remember that DVD-RAM disks are reusable (some up to 50,000 times per my
Panasonic DVD-RAM instructions). Many devices can not read DVD-RAM disks and
some DVD drives can be damaged (according to the operating instructions) if
you put a DVD-RAM disk in a device that can't read it. So make sure that
the device that is to read the disk is capable of it.

BTW, I attempted to find out more information about your drive from
Matshita - Panasonic but they had no record of the drive even though I see
many references about the drive on various newsgroups (many were never
answered by the newsgroups.)


"*rain*drops*" <rain@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uOD2u72hHHA.4064@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks, Paul. I'm disappointed to learn that I bought a poor DVD burner.
Here I thought I was getting something good. I do have Nero and can make
an image and burn it to DVD, I guess. I'll follow your suggestions to buy
some 3-packs and try them out. I just hope I don't have to spend too much
money -- those DVD discs are expensive!

--

*rain*drops*



"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:f0nens$k65$1@xxxxxxxxxxx
*rain*drops* wrote:
Thanks Paul. I checked Office Depot's site and they don't have any
media that specified DVD-RAM. I found this at another site:
http://www.meritline.com/optodisc-3x-dvd-ram-94g-in-jewel-case.html
Is that the kind of media I would need? And then I could make a DVD
with a slug of programs and music on it?


DVD-RAM is intended for random access, read or write. It is handy if you
want to treat optical media like it was a hard drive. It is not a very
fast technology. Have a look at this page, to see some of its
characteristics.
A big question would be, what other drives in your house can read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd-ram

A more conventional way to use optical media, is to have the burner
software prepare an image of all the files to be burned, and then
burn a disk. That is a much more popular way to do it. If you buy
an optical drive that comes bundled with Nero, then you can do stuff
like that.

For my own usage, at first I was buying rewritable media, thinking
I would be changing stuff all the time. Everyone's access patterns
are different, and what I've discovered over time, is write-once
media is OK for my usage. Because most of the stuff I archive,
it turns out, I don't overwrite later.

I think if I was you, I'd buy a sample pack of DVD-RAM and play
with it. And see what you think. I bought a bunch of different
3 packs of stuff when I was first tuning up my burner, and by
working with small quantities, you can see which brands work
well.

My main complaint with optical media, in the stuff I've tried the
last couple of years, is burn quality and compatibility. I've burned
stuff on one computer, only to find I cannot read it on another
computer. I end up doing error scans on the burned disks, to see
whether there are problems or not. Which pisses me off big time.
I'm beginning to think my floppy collection is a safer way to do
stuff :-( YMMV.

Now, the DVD-RAM should be different, in that the above Wikipedia
article says the DVD-RAM does read-verify during burn, and has
error management. Which means, if you had flaky media, the
drive would become extremely slow (because of all the extra work
it would be doing, sparing out sectors/tracks and the like), and that
would be an indication that the disks you bought were bad. So
you'd be trying to detect the difference between "slow" operation,
and "extremely slow".

Paul




.

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