In article ,
"Don{ald} O. Woodall" wrote:

>      My success is next to ZERO on being able to use /
> re-use CD-RW disks.

Strange. I use quite a lot of RW disks (at one stage, 4x Memorex RWs
were very cheap around here). The only problem I've had with them is
that the DVD/CDRW combo that I have for my Thinkpad doesn't like RW
disks much - sometimes won't read them or won't read them reliably, and
often won't boot from bootable RW disks. Other than that...

>      I have never seen the manual for them that a user needs.

:) I think all I've ever used was what little comes up in the CDrecord
help

>      To me they are like floppy disks; one needs to format them before
> they are usable.
> 
>      However, from experience, i have divined that
"blanking" a new CR-RW
> disk is a good way to destroy it.

Not in my experience. When I first started using them, I wasn't sure
whether new disks should be blanked or not, so I did blank them. I've
not lost one yet.

>      I am currently trying to blank, for a second(?) time a
> CD-RW that I blanked and re-wrote to a day or two ago.  I
> have tried several times to blank it.  NO GO!  So, I tried
> to write to it again.  That doesn't work either.
> 
>      The disks I have are:
> 
>                    MEMOREX   CD-RW
> 
>         700MB    80minute  write from 4X up to 12X multi speed

Mine would seem to be an older version of the same media - max speed is
4X. Since my ancient Yamaha CDRW only does 4X for RW media, that's never
worried me much :)

> {at}echo off
> REM            The name of this file is:  CDRWblnk.CMD
> REM   ------------------------------------------------
> REM cdrecord -vv -blank=fast >
>         H:\APPS\CDRECORD\DOW-LOGS\cdrw-blank.log 2>&1
> cdrecord -vv -blank=all >
>         H:\APPS\CDRECORD\DOW-LOGS\cdrw-blank.log 2>&1


{at}echo off
SET EMXOPT=-h120
cdrecord dev=1,3,0 blank=fast -eject
if errorlevel 1 goto error
goto end
:error
echo.
echo.
echo An error ocurred while blanking the CD-RW media
echo.
echo.
:end

I've never had my error trap message come up yet... I'm also far from
sure whether the EMXOPT setting is required.

I don't know what to suggest. Other than the fact that some CD/DVD
drives are a bit touchy about reading RW media, I've never had any real
problems with RW disks at all. And some of them have been reused 10+
times (I've used a lot of them to burn UpdCD-created OS/2 install
disks, which often involves multiple tries before I get them right).

I was under the impression that Plextor drives were pretty good, but
judging from your experience, maybe not. My Yamaha is SCSI, is your
drive SCSI or IDE?

paul.

-- 
paulm{at}waitrose.com
Marwick Computer Services - Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, UK
OS/2, LAN and general Computer Consultants



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