3 replies to this topic

[Bao Pu]

hello

Okay, I have read all over the place that using RW discs for data is not advisable. I see what people mean. I made two data discs using Roxio Creator LE - Dell Edition 2.4.32a, which, a day later mysteriously became music discs. So I tried it again, this time clicking "Make Compatible" and these work - most of the time. While copying data from them it stopped a couple of times and Windows explorer stopped responding. After clearing that up I navigated back to the D drive only to find nothing on it. I tried it in my E drive and there it was. There have been a couple other situations like these too, so I am going to stay away from keeping data on the RW DVDs.

This being the case, of what use are RW discs? Of what use is DLA? Of what use is Roxio Creator LE - Dell Edition?

I have many Word documents which I constantly modify (research documents). Every few weeks I back them up on disc and bring it to another location (my workplace) in case the house burns down or something. For years I had just been dragging and dropping files from my hard drive to a CD-RW using no special program and it worked. Every once in awhile the disc would not allow me to modify it anymore, so I simply made another and used it instead. Never had any of the data gone missing or changed in any way. I recently got a new computer and figured I'd use this Roxio software, but it's not working out so good. I could use DVD-R or CD-R, but this would mean I would go through very many of them each year. Yes, the CDs are cheap, but I'm an environmentally-friendly sort of fellow, so this seems very wasteful to me.

I've caught references to people having good results using unformatted CDs/DVDs, but don't know much about this. It seems that may have been what I was doing in the past.

Any comments, suggestions, warnings?
Thanks

Harmony,
Bao Pu

[lynn98109]

Packet-Writing (Nero's InCD, Sonic's DLA, Roxio's Drag2Disc and DirectCD, etc) was developed in the long ago when the alternative was a 1.44MB floppy.  It can hold large files briefly, as, for example, while working on a webpage.

The people who really know what it is, use it for very temporary things like that.  However, common misperception has latched onto it as a "great-big floppy-disc".  At best it is very fussy (insisting on the same Operating System and and Program Version that created it), and it can fail for any reason or none at all.

What Packet-Writing is NOT, is a reliable back-up.

There are 3 kinds of discs, either CD or DVD:

• Commercially pressed discs, which have the pits and lands physically pressed into them (pits and lands are the physical equivalent of magnetic 0's and 1's)
  
• R discs, which have the pits and lands set by a laser "cooking" a dye - there are not quite as stable as commercially pressed discs, but close
  
• RW discs, which have the pits and lands set by the laser melting and re-crystalizing an aluminum alloy - which promptly starts to de-crystalize, taking all the data with it.  At some point in time, the alloy was changed to make the discs less costly, and less reliable.  You can't say in advance how long a given disc will last - but it won't give you an engraved notice two weeks before it goes, it just goes when it goes.

RW media is useful for testing, or for transferring things between computers when there are no other options, and the original files are safely on the originating computer.  Then it can be erased and re-used.  (If you "delete" a file on either R or RW media, you do NOT gt the space back - you merely delete it from the TOC [Table of Contents].  The difference is you can erase the ENTIRE RW disc and start over.

A couple references that may be useful:
http://club.cdfreaks...ead.php?t=61943
Byers Guide (.pdf)
http://www.cdrfaq.org/

Have you considered a Flash drive (aka Thumb / Pen / Keychain / Jump drive)?

Lynn

Edited by lynn98109, 14 November 2006 - 06:39 PM.

[Bao Pu]

lynn98109, on Nov 14 2006, 06:32 PM, said:

Have you considered a Flash drive (aka Thumb / Pen / Keychain / Jump drive)?

Hi Lynn,

Yes, I was thinking of just using my Flash drive, but I have problems. See my post here: http://forums.suppor...?...ost&p=66819

[NYDeb]

I was looking for an answer to a related topic when I came across these posts.  I have used a CD-RW formated in Adaptic for the past 5 years as a drag and drop backup for most of my files.  I don't think I have lost any files but these posts suggest I should be wary of doing this.  Is the limited life of files on a CD-RW universal, no matter what program is used to create the CD?
The original problem deals with a CD-RW created in Adaptic which I use to transfer files from an HP desktop that does not go online to a Dell Inspiron 600m with RecordNow and DLA that does go online.  I have been using this method for over a year with no problem.  Recently, the Dell drive using DLA automatically starts to format the disc created on Adaptic.  I do not recall changing any settings on the Dell.  Am hoping someone can help me figure out what is wrong.