Any way to write anything to a coaster?

[lbeck]

I have a collection of high quality (Fuji, Verbatim, etc) DVD-Rs that I have held back from the trash bin thinking that they may have some value now or later. These are blanks that have been rendered unuseable by writing software, even though they may have less than a minute of data written to them prior to whatever glitch caused them to be ejected. In most cases, it was a software error during the initiation of the burn process. I'm not talking about the discs that were ejected just prior to or during finalization. There isn't enough space on these to worry about and they get tossed.

My thinking is that the material (substrate, dyes, etc.) is still good, and concieveably could be written to if the DVD writer wold just ignore what's already been written to it. However, I always get the error message "the medium is not blank" or whatever.

My question is this -- do one of you media gurus know if there is now or will ever be software to allow material to be written to the 99% of the disc that is unadulterated? If this is now and will always be a physical impossibility because of some natural law of thermodynamics or something, then maybe I'm wasting my time and space saving the blanks.

[Roderz]

In theory what you’re asking should be possible, just that all current software seems to strict.

I used to do something similar with cd-r media (had 2 meg data + was finalized, but I could still write to the remaining disc space AND read it back) but that was back in 1994 using win3.1 and some old corel cdmastering software.

[Savant]

There are two considerations involved in what you're asking. First there is the area where file information is stored. If that gets messed up then nothing will recover it. However, if you were doing multisession burns, then I do know of some people who have been able to coax an aborted burn back to life. However, when dealing with DVDs and such, no one uses multisession, only DAO. (disk at once) Which basically means if it doesn't work you're SOL.

Regards,

Savant

[lbeck]

Okay. Based on the previous 2 posts I'm assuming that future technology may allow something to be written to the unused area of the blank unless a critical area of the blank has been written to. I agree that technology changes. When I first started writing to CD-Rs I didn't even know what multisession meant, so I was finalizing CDs that contained only a fraction of the space used.

I haven't even considered multisession for DVDs. I guess the wizards (e.g., with Nero) default to DAO. This brings up another question. If you don't plan on using the entire 4.7 GB (or 4.3...whatever) is there an option to leave it open? I typicaly use Nero for my computer-based burns and sometimes write a video file that is only 3 GB or so. If the answer is yes I could leave these open unless/until I decide to try to play it in a player that doesn't read -Rs. I'm thinking that there may be a way (with the right software/hardware) to do this since I also have a Panasonic DMR-E20 set-top DVD recorder and it allows recording multiple times and will play material on the E-20. However, to get the disc to play in other machines (or even on my computer hardware) you have to use the E20 to finalize it.

[normando]

You should be able to write on either side of the disc with a Sharpie without error... :P

[Hoagie_one]

You should be able to write on either side of the disc with a Sharpie without error... :P

Suject to the steadiness of your hand however

[lbeck]

I've been checking this post daily for 7 years and there have been no new posts.

Not really, but I decided to bump it back to the top since technology may have changed and I still have the same question. And since I'm a hoarder, I have several hundred "almost blank" DVD +/- Rs in some hoarded cake boxes. I can always use them as frisbees.

Any new information or technology that will allow writing to the 99+% blank area of the coasters?

[Nelson37]

The Sharpie is still the best bet.

[filmboss80]

I don't think the authors of disc-burning software have considered designing their products to accommodate people with hoarding dysfunctions. I don't even know if discs that have been saved for 7 years are viable media these days.

Do yourself--and those who care about you--a favor; fill that garbage bin with all your clutter. It will be very liberating.

And burn with Imgburn to minimize coasters, especially when using reliable media.

[jman98]

You can try ImgBurn or Nero, but the odds are pretty high that you won't be able to write to the discs. My step-mother's brother, who lives in the UK, recently sent her a DVD and she and my dad couldn't play it anywhere. I had them send it to me and I checked it and it's mostly empty AND not finalized. ISOBuster couldn't even recover it. I tried using both Nero and ImgBurn to put a small file on the disc so I could maybe close it and neither would do so. I really have to agree with filmboss80 on this. Do yourself a favor and throw those discs away. Under very rare circumstances you may get some software to write to the discs, but I'd say that probably 99% of the time it won't work.

[lbeck]

Okay - I get the message. It's just that when I began the hoarding DVD blanks were several dollars each and I was even more impoverished that I am now. Also, 100 coasters in a cake box take up much less room than, say, 100 VHS tapes. It just has been simple to add an additional 1/32 inch to the stack, and I've only saved the ones that the burner spit out immediately (but with a small amount of data written).

Now that blanks are only cents apiece I don't find as much of an incentive to recover the wasted area. Maybe I will actually use them as coasters.

Has anyone found a use for those little 1-inch donut thingies that sit on top of a new spindle of DVDs? (just kidding)

[byteguy]

Has anyone found a use for those little 1-inch donut thingies that sit on top of a new spindle of DVDs? (just kidding)

I keep a stack of those at my desk at work. VERY useful for throwing around during frustrating phone calls. How big of a bag of THOSE do you have?

[lordsmurf]

You should be able to write on either side of the disc with a Sharpie without error... :P

Somebody beat me to it.