Formatting a DVD+RW

[V Bot]

When I try to burn an ISO to the disc in IMGBurn it gives the message of Disc Needs To Be Formatted, so I format and then it reads Disc not empty. The discs are from Office Depot (Which is probably the problem). Any Ideas what is going on here? They're probably made by Ritek or somethig.

[midders]

Most problems of this nature are due to poor quality media; CDFreaks generally recommends Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden media.

Sláinte

midders

[lordsmurf]

That doesn't sound like a blank media issue to me... does sound odd, however. When I run into this, using another drive tends to help. DVD+RW are probably the most flaky of all DVD formats.

[jman98]

I've had ImgBurn act weird when trying to format DVD+RW. While I usually only advise using Nero for burning audio CDs and data discs, I have to say that Nero really does a superior job over ImgBurn when it comes to formatting DVD+RW media. If you have Nero, try using it to format and then burn with ImgBurn.

[stiltman]

Same problems with imgburn and nero.
I found if I can't seem to format it quick or long, I revert to the burning app in TDA 1.5. That burning app has never failed me.

[lordsmurf]

My experience is similar -- Nero 6 does better at formatting blanks than does ImgBurn or DVD Decrypter.

[V Bot]

It's got to be the Office Depot discs. Thanks for the replies.

[hech54]

You guys are freaking me out.
Just yesterday I broke out an old DVD+RW to do put a 1.2GB video file on temporarily.
I haven't touched any of those discs for YEARS....until yesterday.

[AlanHK]

When I try to burn an ISO to the disc in IMGBurn it gives the message of Disc Needs To Be Formatted, so I format and then it reads Disc not empty. The discs are from Office Depot (Which is probably the problem). Any Ideas what is going on here? They're probably made by Ritek or somethig.

So what happens if you ignore "disc not empty" and do it anyway? That's what I see when I reuse a RW. And I've done that hundreds of times, till after a year or so the discs are so scratched up I have to throw them.

I use RWs to test menus and for watch-once-and-discard videos.

Oddly enough the best one I have now is a freebie I got with a 50-disc spindle of Verbatim, some unbranded disc with a cartoon on it.

If a burn is interrupted and the disc is unreadable Nero is good for reformatting. About the only thing I'd use it for preferably to ImgBurn.

[hech54]

I used on old BenQ (Philips made discs I believe) +RW yesterday. I noticed it was not empty(had DVD folders on it) so I did a quick erase with DVDDecrypter.
I then attempted to burn an .mpg file (as data) to the disc with ImgBurn but it had to reformat then burn. I thought the quick erase would be enough but I was wrong. Of course ImgBurn came through and did exactly what I wanted....as usual.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

If it says it's not empty then the drive can't be reporting it as a DVD+RW.

Alcohol and DAEMON Tools can both make a DVD+RW look like it's a DVD-ROM. Do you have either of those installed?

Copy + paste the disc info from the panel on the right when you're in Write mode.