On Sep 4 2004, 15:29, Scarletdown wrote:
> On Saturday 04 September 2004 07:51, Ron Hudson wrote:
> > Too bad AOL doesn't put their stuff on CD-RW (??? CD re-write-able
> > right?)
> >
> > or can a CD-RW be read by a normal CD drive?
>
> Many CD-R drives can read CD-RW disks, provided you have UDF support.
> For example, on the couple Windows-98 systems I've set up for others,
Almost any CD-ROM or CD-R drive should be able to physically read a
CD-RW, without any special support. Those that can't are mostly old
CD-ROM drives that can't handle the lower levels of light reflected
from a CD-RW.
However, UDF is a type of file system that's used mainly by some DVDs,
video CDs, and some consumer-electronics recorders, and whether that
can be read depends on support in your OS, not the type of drive.
Unfortunately there are several flavours of UDF, and a lot of
vendor-specific extensions, some of which are used by drag-and-drool
software for Windows. The other problem often seen with CD-RW disks,
even when they have a more ordinary filesystem on them, is that they're
not "fixated" or "closed" -- the last session is left open so it can be
added to. The usual reason is that someone has treated the CD-RW as a
big floppy, rather than a write-once (and perhaps later erase
completely) medium. Lots of software (and CD players) can't handle
unfixated disks.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Received on Sat Sep 04 2004 - 19:50:23 BST