how the hell do I erase a DVD-RW? (yes, I'm blushing)

[Will Hay]

.....how the hell do I erase a DVD-RW?
I bought some by mistake a while back and now have a Pioneer A07 figure I'll do some testing.
I've burnt a small DVD to one and it plays fine, now I want to burn another.
I've looked to format first, I've looked within RecordNowMax for an erase facility and I've tried to simply burn over the top; all with no success.
Please, what am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Will Hay

[Will Hay]

SHIT!!!!
it's always the way, isn't it?
SHIT!!!!!
You spend an hour trying to figure it, post a message and then, in the blink of an eye it hits you.
For anyone else not as stupid as me...

[lordsmurf]

I'm amazed you'd even admit this.

But then again, I have my own stupid things.
But I try to keep them secret as best I can. :P

As a general tip, I find the DVD DECRYPTER or DVD INFO -RW erasing to be best. Not sure why.

[Will Hay]

Shit, do something dumb and there's always someone around you'd rather not have see it

One thing you can help me on, there's no speed on these DVD-RW's, and not having used them at al lreally...
...can I burn at any speed?
I've just tried at x2 and it reported 13 mins so I aborted it, I selected x8 speed and it said the same speed.
Would that indicate they're only a certain speed?
Will

[Guest]

You can also format/erase the disc by right clicking on the drive letter in windows explorer.

[Will Hay]

You can also format/erase the disc by right clicking on the drive letter in windows explorer.

Doesn't work for me.
Will

[stiltman]

I think you have to have the CD in in order to have the format/erase option

[Guest]

You can also format/erase the disc by right clicking on the drive letter in windows explorer.

Doesn't work for me.
Will

Huh? Do you have removable data cards ? Try the same thing. I may wrong. I don't have a rw drive at work so i'll check it out later. Now I'm curious.

[FOO]

I think RNM is the same as it's predecessor PrimoDVD in that
it reports record times apparently at random.
I'm doing a 2X now that reported 56 minutes but it's
going 3 meg/sec which is really 2X

[Will Hay]

I think you have to have the CD in in order to have the format/erase option

Of course it's in.
Will

[lordsmurf]

You have to have ROXIO ( ) for that right-clik thing to work (comes with some XP systems).

The speed is either 1x (or 2x if marked) ... like FOO said, some software is random about speeds.

Writing a -RW at a rate faster than it should go can hurt the drive, and will OFTEN ruin the disc. I should know. (Remember that "stupid things" topic just now... well, I'll admit that one. One good -RW once bit the dust, drive okay.) the 2X4ALL firmwares and less-strict firmware will allow this to happen, and destroys the disc. This isn't dye, but a phase change material, cannot overburn it at all.

[Guest]

You can also format/erase the disc by right clicking on the drive letter in windows explorer.

Doesn't work for me.
Will

I think LS is right. I have Roxio/xp and it seems to work.

[flaninacupboard]

yep, i cooked a DVD-RW by installing hacked firmware and then erasing at 2X.

[qlizard]

I find that I can never "quick" erase a DVD-RW in nero and then correctly burn to it. I have to do a full erase which takes forever. But when I use the erase function in the TMPGenc Dvdauthor writer, it is very quick and always results in correct burns later.

[Touchdown]

Took me a while to figure it out at first too. Kept thinking I was an idiot. Finally found an option in Nero to do it

[TBoneit]

I do it by burning in Nero 5.5.x.x

I just set up my burn, Nero says the disk isn't blank, would I like to format it, I say yes and away it goes, formats and then burns.

Side note the Cyberhome Standalon recorder seems to have a bug in it. If I burn a RW til it stops I can extract the video in my computer, but it's a little weird and takes a bit more work to reauthor. Then when I put it back in it formats it. Wheras If I stop it before it runs out of room it's ok. Thus the bug I refer to seems to be that it records until it can't close the disk.

But erasing in nero is so transarent I don't even bother, i just reuse the disk and let Nero do it's thing.

FWIW I've been burning DVDs with Nero flawlessly since I got my Dual format Sony in Late 2002.

Cheers

[Kingnog]

Right-click on the drive in windows and go to the 'recording' (or whatever it is) tab. Make sure it's enabled (the little box thingy that says 'enable recording on this drive' or something similar). You don't have to have roxio...at least in WinXP. Then you can right-click and erase.

[jaxxboss]

DLA is also an optin. I never fart around with -rw at all tho, i mean why on earth would anyone want to?

[tkamin]

I use my Ridata dvd+rw all the time since i add subtitles to existing dvds i first burn them to the rw to check if it's in sync. i just put it in nero and when it starts burning it says the disc is full - do u wanna erase? i just click yes and in 10 sec it's already burnin... about 10 times and no prob (at X4)

[espresso freak]

Can overburn render a DVD-RW unusable??

I finally got studio 8 to burn, and now I've got 2 RW disks that aren't even recognized by the devices, thus cannot be "erased".