Newbie question for CD-RW's

Finally made it to the modern world, sacrificed my Zip and bought a burner.

Questions:

1. What is packet writing? Is there any benefit to using this rather than the alternative? Are there any compatibility issues?

2. I see people asking if the software can burn iso's...what are those?

3. I got a Sony which came with Espressa...is there any advantage in using Nero or Adaptec?

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

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"It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black." despair.com

[This message has been edited by urge_13 (edited November 13, 2001).]

Answers:

1) Packet writing allows you to use a CD-RW just like a floppy disk or hard drive. You can just drag and drop files from Explorer or save to the disk by using the save commmand from any program. You can even delete files too.

2) An ISO is an image of an entire CD. Can be 650MB in size. You can have ISO's of music and data CDs.

3) Some people say Nero is better. I use Adaptec ECDC 4 and it works fine. Some programs can copy CD's in RAW mode which makes a copy of a copy protected CD. The burner has to support it though.(I don't think that was against the AUP?)

Thats just about it. If I'm wrong about anything please correct me and then flame me for the error.

-PJ

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System Specs:
Tyan S1854 Trinity 400/PIII 733/133/256MB PC133 Crucial CAS 2/15GB 7200RPM Maxtor
Samsung 12x DVD/Philips 8x4x32 CD/RW/Radeon 64MB DDR/SB Live! Value/Creative 56k
Samsung 17" 753DF/Windows 98 SE/3D Mark 2001: 2555 Default Bench

Future Upgrades:
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4/266/Abit KT7a

That's what I needed to know. Being able to delete files w/o reburning really helps.

Thanks.

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"It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black." despair.com

Wow. I actually helped someone. I think thats a first. Cool.

One word of caution...if you use the packet writing (Direct CD for instance) be careful with the disk and preferably keep a back up. They are notorious for freezing up in the middle of a file transfer and then not letting you get any of the info back off the disk. Happened to me with about six months of Excel spreadsheets for my business and I wasn't too happy. If it is info that is real important it is safer on a CDR as an archive than a CDRW, even though those seem a bit more convenient. As always, YMMV.

HTH

Quote:

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Originally posted by cappycue:
One word of caution...if you use the packet writing (Direct CD for instance) be careful with the disk and preferably keep a back up. They are notorious for freezing up in the middle of a file transfer and then not letting you get any of the info back off the disk. Happened to me with about six months of Excel spreadsheets for my business and I wasn't too happy. If it is info that is real important it is safer on a CDR as an archive than a CDRW, even though those seem a bit more convenient. As always, YMMV.

HTH

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Do you think it was the program or the media?

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"It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black." despair.com

My Rig:
http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=13651

I had a CD-R once die on me when it was formatted with Direct CD. The computer froze and I couldn't access the disc anymore. I guess it has to write something to the disc before it ejects it. I don't really know how Direct CD works with CD-R, only tried it once and it messed up. My CD-RWs work fine.

-PJ