DVD-RAM in Vista

In case anyone is wondering how to best use DVD-RAM in Vista, here are the instructions. This is the result of several days of experimenting with various software and trying to interpret what little documentation there is on DVD-RAM:

1. Buy some DVD-RAM media! If you can get them locally, great! Otherwise, I think the easiest way to get them is direct from Panasonic: http://www.panasonic.com/ > Supplies & Accessories > DVD-RAM. You can buy DVD-RAM "for video" or "for data," it doesn't matter. The only difference is how it's formatted, but you'll be reformatting them later anyway. Also, there theoretically exists 12x media, but this seems to only exist in Japan. Here in the U.S., you're lucky to get 5x right now.

2. Install ImgBurn. http://www.imgburn.com/. You'll use this for the initial low-level format.

BACKGROUND INFO: DVD-RAM has spare areas used for defect management. This is done by the drive itself, so there's no way around it. As far as the OS is concerned, a DVD-RAM is exactly like a hard drive. Any bad sectors are remapped automatically and the OS never knows about them. The Primary Spare Area (PSA) is always 26 MB and is at the beginning of the media. The Secondary Spare Area (SSA) is variable-size and is at the end of the media. By default, it's about 100 MB. But the cool part is, if you think the PSA is enough, you can reformat a DVD-RAM to eliminate the secondary spare area. To do this:

3. Once you have the media, you want to do a low-level format. To do this, run ImgBurn, and open up Tools > Settings > Write. Check the box next to "Prefer Format Without Spare Areas." This sets ImgBurn to format without a SSA if possible. Then do a full erase. (It calls it a full erase, but it's actually sending the FORMAT UNIT command to the drive.) After you do this, eject and re-insert the disc so that Vista recognizes the extra space.

MORE BACKGROUND INFO: If a DVD-RAM drive detects a defect during use, it will automatically map the bad sector back to either the PSA or the SSA, if one exists. Unfortunately, this means that the head has to seek to the spare area each time it hits a remapped sector. However, during a low-level format, all of these remapped sectors are actually mapped differently. In this case, it will use "slip" remapping, so that no extra seeking is necessary. This is only possible during a full format because slipping basically pushes all of the sectors back by one, and you can't just do that on the fly. ;)

4. Now you have a DVD-RAM that is low-level formatted to the maximum capacity. Now just open up My Computer, right-click the drive, and format it with UDF 2.50. You actually have two choices here. "Full Format" performs a low-level format again, and then writes the UDF filesystem. "Quick Format" just writes the UDF filesystem. The advantage of a full format is that, since the drive is doing another low-level format, it can optimize the sector remapping to avoid the extra seeking.

5. That's it. Now you can copy files to it just like a hard disk/thumb drive/etc.

If you want, you can also check Disk Management before and after using ImgBurn, and see that this frees up about 100 MB. Also, here's what ImgBurn tells me about the disc after I re-formatted it:

Current Format Capacity:
Sectors: 2,295,072
Size: 4,700,307,456 bytes
Time: 510:02:72 (MM:SS:FF)

Preferred Format Capacity:
Sectors: 2,236,704
Size: 4,580,769,792 bytes
Time: 497:04:54 (MM:SS:FF)

Maximum Format Capacity:
Sectors: 2,295,072
Size: 4,700,307,456 bytes
Time: 510:02:72 (MM:SS:FF)

Thought it might be a good idea to document all this somewhere. Hopefully with this info DVD-RAM will start selling like hot-cakes and we will start seeing 12x media here in the U.S. :D