FAT32 DVD-RAM cannot be written to

[John Hupp]

This is for an XP Pro SP2 laptop with an optical drive supporting
no-cartridge DVD-RAM discs, which we want to use for shared data backup.

I used XP Disk Management to format a new 3x Panasonic DVD-RAM disc to
FAT32, which is supposed to have native read/write support through Windows
Explorer. But when I create new folders on the drive in Explorer, it lists
the folders with shortcut icons and the Explorer contents pane gains a
header: "Files waiting to be written to the CD." That seems wrong, but if I
play along and click "Write these files to CD," I get an error message along
the lines of "disc is full or is the wrong type of disc."

Anyone know what's going on here?

John Hupp
PRP Company

 

[smlunatick]

This is for an XP Pro SP2 laptop with an optical drive supporting
no-cartridge DVD-RAM discs, which we want to use for shared data backup.

I used XP Disk Management to format a new 3x Panasonic DVD-RAM disc to
FAT32, which is supposed to have native read/write support through Windows
Explorer.  But when I create new folders on the drive in Explorer, it lists
the folders with shortcut icons and the Explorer contents pane gains a
header: "Files waiting to be written to the CD."  That seems wrong, but if I
play along and click "Write these files to CD," I get an error message along
the lines of "disc is full or is the wrong type of disc."

Anyone know what's going on here?

John Hupp
PRP Company

I do not think the DVD is supposed to be FAT32 or NTFS. As for 'Write
these files to CD," XP never had any direct writing support for most
other DVD formats (+R, -R, -RW, +RW) and it internal CD writing
tool(s) will only do CDs.

 

[John Hupp]

MS KB article 283588 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283588?fr=1) says that
XP does support DVD-RAM.

But I note upon locating and reading this particular article just now for
the first time, that only specific drives are supported. The drive in the
laptop is a Matshita UJ-841S, which isn't on the specifically-supported
list. So maybe that is the problem.

Anyone else recognize this issue?

This is for an XP Pro SP2 laptop with an optical drive supporting
no-cartridge DVD-RAM discs, which we want to use for shared data backup.

I used XP Disk Management to format a new 3x Panasonic DVD-RAM disc to
FAT32, which is supposed to have native read/write support through Windows
Explorer. But when I create new folders on the drive in Explorer, it lists
the folders with shortcut icons and the Explorer contents pane gains a
header: "Files waiting to be written to the CD." That seems wrong, but if
I
play along and click "Write these files to CD," I get an error message
along
the lines of "disc is full or is the wrong type of disc."

Anyone know what's going on here?

John Hupp
PRP Company

I do not think the DVD is supposed to be FAT32 or NTFS. As for 'Write
these files to CD," XP never had any direct writing support for most
other DVD formats (+R, -R, -RW, +RW) and it internal CD writing
tool(s) will only do CDs.

 

[Bill in Co.]

I do not think the DVD is supposed to be FAT32 or NTFS.

Really? Well what format would it be in? I thought if you write a DVD
(or even a CD for that matter), it would ultimately be in one of those two
formats on the disc, but I may be mistaken.

 

[John Hupp]

Here's the solution I found:

On the Recording tab of the DVD-RAM properties (accessed from My Computer
rather than Device Manager), I un-checked "Enable CD Recording on this
drive" and the disc became instantly usable as expected.

 

[M.I.5¾]

Here's the solution I found:

On the Recording tab of the DVD-RAM properties (accessed from My Computer
rather than Device Manager), I un-checked "Enable CD Recording on this
drive" and the disc became instantly usable as expected.

This is an odd one because Windows should directly recognise a DVD-RAM drive
and treat it as a normal rewritable disk (as in hard disc rather than normal
DVD) even if you have the record enabled in the properties. Still, if you
are happy with the solution.

 

[M.I.5¾]

This is for an XP Pro SP2 laptop with an optical drive supporting
no-cartridge DVD-RAM discs, which we want to use for shared data backup.

I used XP Disk Management to format a new 3x Panasonic DVD-RAM disc to
FAT32, which is supposed to have native read/write support through Windows
Explorer. But when I create new folders on the drive in Explorer, it lists
the folders with shortcut icons and the Explorer contents pane gains a
header: "Files waiting to be written to the CD." That seems wrong, but if
I
play along and click "Write these files to CD," I get an error message
along
the lines of "disc is full or is the wrong type of disc."

Anyone know what's going on here?

John Hupp
PRP Company

I do not think the DVD is supposed to be FAT32 or NTFS. As for 'Write
these files to CD," XP never had any direct writing support for most
other DVD formats (+R, -R, -RW, +RW) and it internal CD writing
tool(s) will only do CDs.

----------------

If you don't know then do us a favour and don't post garbage.

Windows XP directly supports writing to DVD-RAM discs, provided the drive
itself supports the media. DVD-RAM discs are normally formatted in FAT32
and are written to like any hard disc (albeit a slow one). DVD-RAM can also
be formatted in UDFRW format, but requires a third party utility to
recognise the format. UDFRW is allegedly faster than FAT32, but I
personally have never timed it. Use of this latter format will give discs
that are not universally compatible.

 

[M.I.5¾]

Really? Well what format would it be in? I thought if you write a
DVD (or even a CD for that matter), it would ultimately be in one of those
two formats on the disc, but I may be mistaken.

You are mistaken. CDs are normally written in CDFS (Compact Disc Filing
System - of which there are a wide number of variants) format. DVDs
(excluding DVD-RAM) are normally written in UDF (Unified Disc Format)
format. There are other variations on formatting to support packet
incremental writing or video recording.

 

[Bill in Co.]

You are mistaken. CDs are normally written in CDFS (Compact Disc Filing
System - of which there are a wide number of variants) format. DVDs
(excluding DVD-RAM) are normally written in UDF (Unified Disc Format)
format. There are other variations on formatting to support packet
incremental writing or video recording.

Interesting to know - thanks. So (apparently)) FAT and NTFS only applies
to magnetic disks and flash (solid-state) "drives" (???). And optical
media ended up being formatted completely differently by design. (or maybe
I've made some incorrect assumptions again)

 

[M.I.5¾]

Interesting to know - thanks. So (apparently)) FAT and NTFS only
applies to magnetic disks and flash (solid-state) "drives" (???). And
optical media ended up being formatted completely differently by design.
(or maybe I've made some incorrect assumptions again)

Optical media is generally different because they are historically written a
different way. Whereas, hard discs, flash discs etc are a true read-write
media (in that you can add, delete and expand files on an individual basis),
CD and DVD discs are generally written to in one go. The disc is then not
further writable, though, of course, rewritable media can be completely
erased and the process repeated. The various formats have undergone
numerous revisions since the 'early days' to allow multi session writing and
the ability of discs to emulate read-write media through packet incremental
writing, but ultimately they are all essentially flavours of CDFS or UDF.

The one exception is DVD-RAM (which doesn't really belong to the family
being much closer to the short lived and long forgotten Panasonic PD disc -
this predated the CD-R). This is sector formatted in a similar manner to a
hard disc (the sectoring is even visible if you look at the disc), which
means that it is read-write in the same manner as a hard disc and natively
uses the same format (FAT32) when used for computer data use, though other
formats are possible (AIUI, Vista supports UDF-RDR). The DVD-RAM would have
been obsolete today if it had not enjoyed a revival for video recorder use
where it has a number of advantages over the more normal DVD discs. These
advantages include very long life at 100,000 rewrite operations (compared to
1000 for DVD-RW), and the ability to replay one recording while recording
another (though modern dual head recorders can achieve this using normal
DVDs, they can only do it at the slower recording speeds). The DVD-RAM was
accepted by the DVD consortium (later DVD Forum) as an official DVD variant
in 1996, simply because it was the only writable (actually rewritable)
format at that time (though the DVD-R was only a year behind, it was not
rewritable). The DVD-RW didn't appear until 1999. Many DVD writers support
the format today and the number is growing.