Packet Writing????

I recently loaded CD-Maker 2000 with File CD facility for packet writing. I kinda like the idea of using a CD like a floppy (add, delete etc) Do many of you use packet writing??? I read some time ago in a thread someone said "packet writing sucks" Why? I didn't take much notice as I didn't know what it was at the time. I just want some opinions OK
Plus, when I installed the software I only had 2 CD-RW's to play with. They have only been written to about twenty times each. When I formatted them for packet writing, in the verify stage it was finding a very lot of "bad sectors" on the CD-RW's. I actually let it go overnight to awake and still sitting around the 50% mark!!! I did a full erase before this procedure. Went to the supermarket and bought a new CD-RW and all was fine in about 20mins ready to write to. Do you need new CD-RW's all the time??

Thanks for any input
Greetings From Downunder
Steve

They say you can erase a RW a thousand times. That might be true, but you can write to one only about 20 times and it becomes unreliable.

I don’t like packet writing for my own use. It is useful for someone who makes daily backups of a large amount of stuff or is set up to add or overwrite just data that has changed. If you overwrote two RWs 20 times each in a short time you are at least using the capabilities.

The problems:
- Any time your formatted CD is in the drive the table of contents (TOC) is in RAM. If you get a power failure or lockup you will lose the TOC and not be able to read the CD. Newer packet writing programs have an explorer applet that will let you recover the data, but it is a hassle at best.
- Any time the formatted CD is in the drive your data is subject to being overwritten or deleted. Since everything is accessible like your other drives, a file altering or destroying virus could attack the files on the CD.
- If you MOVE something to the CD you are really counting on things going perfectly. If you copy first, check the integrity, and then go back and erase the original you might just as well write it with mastering software. Moving to a packet written CD is nowhere as reliable as moving to another partition or HD.
- Packet writing is slow – not a big deal for small files.
- The RW uses crystalline change and only has a 15% reflectivity compared to 60% on a CDR. It doesn’t take much deterioration before it is unreadable and most “experts” think long term storage to RW is inappropriate.
- Packet written CDs can’t be read on computers without packet writing without installing a UDF reader.
- RWs are only 650Mb and formatting takes over a hundred, so you typically have only about 530 or so Mb to write to.
- You will eventually wish you had kept something you erased.

There are people who make good use of packet writing, but most people who want to use their burner for backup learn that stuff is much safer on CDR. You can write multi-session to CDR so you can read what is on it but add more sessions. Housekeeping costs are about 14Mb/session, so if you add in very small sessions you can end up with less space for data than with a packet written RW.

Thanks for the reply. Got a similar response from a newsgroup. All the guru's don't seem to like packet writing so I will follow suit and avoid it before it becomes tragic. Just curious! Now learned
Again Thanks

Holy cow, what propaganda and scare tactics from the "packet writing sucks" crowd!?! I never knew that RW's were so inferior. (Man, and I thought I didn't like MP3's?) It's time to defend the demon rewriteable.

(I use a little budget machine, HP xg843, 800 Celeron, a TEAC CD-W58E 8x4x32, 128mb RAM, 20g HD, using DirectCD. I can't speak for any other packet program, though I downloaded Nero's free trial hoping mostly to try out InCD, but it was disabled).

"They say you can erase a RW a thousand times. That might be true, but you can write to one only about 20 times and it becomes unreliable."

You state that as fact. Is that from your own personal experience, or are you just keeping the flame? I have discs that have been written to and/or formatted between 100 and 200 times. The figure might be higher, but I've only had this computer, my first, since July of 2001, and I use several discs, instead of depending on relatively few. Even so, I've never thrown away a failed disc yet. Sure, I have had a couple of writing failures, and I swear it's been less than 10 for all the discs I use ( 13 at present, dedicated to various things). Uh, don't we also have writing failures with CD-R's? Aren't some brands/batches of them unreliable?

"The problems:
- Any time your formatted CD is in the drive the table of contents (TOC) is in RAM. If you get a power failure or lockup you will lose the TOC and not be able to read the CD. Newer packet writing programs have an explorer applet that will let you recover the data, but it is a hassle at best."

I've been forgetful and left discs in the drive, done restarts, (some due to system freezes, where I had to push the power button) or left them in there for hours, turn on the machine, and no info was lost, no error boxes pop up. That can only mean that the TOC is amended on the disc itself each time the disc is written to. And recovering data from a corrupted hard drive is a hassle too.

" Any time the formatted CD is in the drive your data is subject to being overwritten or deleted. Since everything is accessible like your other drives, a file altering or destroying virus could attack the files on the CD."

Uh, that can happen with a hard drive too, and CD-R's, and though I don't have one I bet the same holds true for a Zip Drive. Viruses can attack most anything on your computer, from floppies to the BIOS.

" If you MOVE something to the CD you are really counting on things going perfectly."

Yeah? Moving something to a CD-R has it's risks. Moving something from one folder to another on a HD has it's risks. Moving something to a floppy has it's risks.

"Packet written CDs can’t be read on computers without packet writing without installing a UDF reader."

Doesn't Windows have a UDF reader built in? (Seems I read that somewhere, but admittedly I don't know. I don't think it does in '98, but keep reading. Since this thing has ME I'd experiment, but the UDF reader in my Add/Remove box can't be uninstalled. Is that a Windows or HP setup?). UDF readers are offered by Roxio and Nero, small files easily backed up to a floppy. AND DirectCD always puts a UDF reader on the disc, as part of the wasted space, just to bypass the supposed "problem". The first RW I took to a friends house popped up a box asking if he wanted to install the Reader. He uses '98. No pain at all.

"RW's are only 650Mb and formatting takes over a hundred, so you typically have only about 530 or so Mb to write to."

Shouldn't be too big of a deal 99 percent of the time, since by it's very nature packet writing is designed to be used here and there, to complement the HD, if you will. It's understood that the RW has limited capacity, same as a CD-R, and it isn't going to be constantly whirring and being written to (and file swapped) like setups with two HD's at once. And as far as the superiority of CD-R's in this instance, you could've mentioned that 700 meg CD-R's are technically "outlaw" discs. Though more and more rare, some machines, usually the older ones, have trouble reading the outer part of the disc, so you might not gain that extra 50 megs. You'll never know that until you try it for yourself. See below for more of the housekeeping "problem".


"You will eventually wish you had kept something you erased."

Dang, we'll ALL feel that someday when the HD dies! You risk losing something with a hard drive or floppy or ZIP Drive. The user has responsibility to keep up with what he/she thinks is special. That's the purpose of backing up to begin with on any media. So why make an RW the whipping boy?

"There are people who make good use of packet writing, but most people who want to use their burner for backup learn that stuff is much safer on CDR."

"Most" people? Sounds like a broad sweeping statement. "Most" people, if they'd give RW's a try, would find they aren't nearly as bad as what they're made out to be. And we all understand that CD-R's are permanent. (Or are they?) Maybe we want to accumulate a little bit before we burn to a CD-R. As a for instance, let's say I save all manner of stuff concerning September the 11th, or my favorite movie star, whatever. Bunch it up on a RW. To be safe, and since they're so cheap, make dupes, 3, 4, however you feel the stuff is important. Then transfer it to a CD-R, instead of having stuff scattered on several discs. And when you're done, that RW can be used for something else.

"You can write multi-session to CDR so you can read what is on it but add more sessions. Housekeeping costs are about 14Mb/session, so if you add in very small sessions you can end up with less space for data than with a packet written RW."

So, in 10 sessions the housekeeping adds up to 140 megs, comparably what you'll lose in formatting an RW. So where's the real advantage? And isn't there risk in losing data every time you do another session with a CD-R? After all, if the TOC is damaged, you can't do a full erase and salvage the disc. At least a rewriteable isn't a total loss. Yes, formatting comes at a price. One reason you forgot to mention is that part of the "wasted" space is necessary to prevent hot spots, premature wear on the disc where it's been written to and erased many times in the same general area, and granted it's something you don't worry about with a CD-R. I don't necessarily like losing that much space on a disc, but I live with it, especially considering how cheap RW's are.

You might also want to mention that so many sessions and you might lose track of just how much space is used and how much is left on a CD-R. I've had problems with it. And closing a CD-R uses housekeeping space as well. There have been more than a couple of threads around here about problems with discs still open.

I could also say your arguments for using CD-R's so exclusively are wasteful. Where do all the coasters go?

RW's aren't perfect, and if anyone has only one or two they depend on they're asking for trouble, and especially if they use them for long term storage. Mine never get a chance to collect dust, the way they're always being amended. If you're going to be a casual user, or backup only when the HD makes weird noises, maybe you should install another HD?

For me packet writing has been a workhorse. It's nowhere near the demon it's made out to be.

Well JoJo ,you seem to be in the minority with regards to Packet Writing ,i'm with slipe on this one.I tried packet writing when I first got my burner and it didn't go well,info that I thought had been copied to CDRW ,simply wasn't the entire file.I've seen many posts from others with probs because of Packet Writing ,so in all good conscience wouldn't recommend it.The system instability and potential of data loss simply isn't worth the hassle when CDRs are sooooo cheap nowdays.Glad it works for you ,but I know it doesn't work for me and many others.


-----------------------------------------
Win98Se/Linux-Mandrake8.2/WinXP Pro
1.2ghz266DDR T-Bird @ 1.4ghz
VolcanoII /RadioShack Paste
IWILL KK266+
384 MB PC133
Matrox G450 32MB AGP
MAXTOR 30GB ATA66 7200RPM
Maxtor 60GB ATA100 7200RPM
16x DVD
6424 CDRW
Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical mouse/keyboard
Viewsonic G90f 19"
Altec Lansing ACS54 Speakers

Well, all I can say, wonderingguy, is that this forum absolutely reeks with CD-R problems of all kinds, day in and day out. Why aren't the "gurus" making noise about that fact?

Each of us has to ultimately see what works best in our system. I just don't like such a blanket one sided condemnation of RW's, (or anything else for that matter), given to newcomers.

I Have to Agree with JoJo Gun on this one...So you not alone JoJo..2 against 2 so far...any more fors n against....
I have 15 CDRWs full of MP3s and 6 CDRWs full of saved Zip Files n programs n Folders, and only ever had 2 problems in 2 years..Not bad...YES CDRs are cheeper, and I keep them for my Final Music CDR (Audio) So thats 3 backups, 1)Hard Disk of 20Gbt with 11 gbt of MP3s in it...2)same MP3s on CDRW...3)Final Album on CDR if needed...All My Photos scanned and on CDRW until I am ready to put the Final Finished Photos onto CDR...Do Not Knock the CDRW, because when you're a newbie a CDRW can be a life saver...Practice with CDRWs and when you know you got it perfick, then use CDRs... BUT CDRs are cheep 18p to 20p a CD you say, SO!! not everyone can afford that, not everyone wants to have a Large Hanging CDR Disk of Babylon in their Garden/Yard to scare the birds away, which you will have when you are a newbie...We not all Einsteins ya see...Also you can use CDRWs as you would a CDR, or use it as I do, Drag n Drop...With Direct CD you can use your CDRW in about 20min, but with In-CD you have to wait a lot longer, so I favour Direct CD...YES Folks I got Nero and EZCD 5 Platinum in my System and Both Work OK side by side. But only use Direct CD cause it's easier...Oh!! I Do Have 3 Coasters All CDRs...1 failed CDRW cause I droped it n scratched it so droped it again into BIN...............That's my 5c/5p worth...Who's Next!!!!??

Discs of Babylon??? Can I quote you on that? :D :D :D

As an aside to all this, more talk of DirectCD than of RW's proper, I found that when using DirectCD to finalize a CD-R to CD-ROM standards you keep your folder customizations, such as Image Preview, where with EasyCD or HP Record Now (Veritas) or SONY CD Extreme, (and the Nero trial), it reverts to Windows standards. It ain't the end of the world, since XnView and Irfanview can be directed to the disc and images can be read, but I suspect some might like to do other customizations. That little discovery isn't mentioned in the help files. My point is that some things you learn by messing around, to see what works for you.

Pound for pound it seems to me RW's are cheaper in the long run, since if you have good luck with them you can reuse them. Cheap CD-R's aren't so cheap when you get them with rebates, and everybody and their Granny is sending you spam afterwards.

EDIT-I go back and reread what you posted, scarecrowdr, and you mention a simple but basic point-RW's can be used for practice or test burns.

"You can write multi-session to CDR so you can read what is on it but add more sessions. Housekeeping costs are about 14Mb/session, so if you add in very small sessions you can end up with less space for data than with a packet written RW."


I have to say in Slipe's defense that he did state the disadvantage of using too many sessions with a CD-R. My apologies.... :o

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Originally posted by JoJo Gunn
Holy cow, what propaganda and scare tactics from the "packet writing sucks" crowd!?! I never knew that RW's were so inferior. (Man, and I thought I didn't like MP3's?) It's time to defend the demon rewriteable.

(I use a little budget machine, HP xg843, 800 Celeron, a TEAC CD-W58E 8x4x32, 128mb RAM, 20g HD, using DirectCD. I can't speak for any other packet program, though I downloaded Nero's free trial hoping mostly to try out InCD, but it was disabled).

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Relax, JoJo Gunn, your Adaptec stock isn't likely to get battered any worse than it already is just from commentary by packet-writing naysayers (of which I am a Charter Member). :)

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"They say you can erase a RW a thousand times. That might be true, but you can write to one only about 20 times and it becomes unreliable."

You state that as fact. Is that from your own personal experience, or are you just keeping the flame?

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I wish it was just a flame, but a simple search of these archives will bear out plenty of others with similar, but perhaps not so dramatic, experiences. I must point out that it was the original poster who reported trouble at about 20. It really doesn't matter to him if I can do 2 or you can do 50,000. He's experiencing trouble. I'm sure your next post will explain to him what he's doing wrong.

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I have discs that have been written to and/or formatted between 100 and 200 times. The figure might be higher, but I've only had this computer, my first, since July of 2001, and I use several discs, instead of depending on relatively few. Even so, I've never thrown away a failed disc yet. Sure, I have had a couple of writing failures, and I swear it's been less than 10 for all the discs I use ( 13 at present, dedicated to various things). Uh, don't we also have writing failures with CD-R's? Aren't some brands/batches of them unreliable?

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Modern recorders, for the most part, are equipped with buffer underrun protection of some type. Once the user has found a brand of disc that matches well to his recorder and playback equipment, failed burns should be exceptionally rare. There are no blanks that are universally defective, but I have encountered recorders that were unusually picky about media. Some recorders burn anything shiny. Of the thousands of discs that went through my Plextor, and the hundreds that have gone through the Lite-On, I'm having a difficult time remembering any that failed. But I don't keep score, I'm sure I must have found a way to bugger up a few. I know if you put the label on the recorded side, the disc doesn't work very well :)

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"The problems:
- Any time your formatted CD is in the drive the table of contents (TOC) is in RAM. If you get a power failure or lockup you will lose the TOC and not be able to read the CD. Newer packet writing programs have an explorer applet that will let you recover the data, but it is a hassle at best."

I've been forgetful and left discs in the drive, done restarts, (some due to system freezes, where I had to push the power button) or left them in there for hours, turn on the machine, and no info was lost, no error boxes pop up. That can only mean that the TOC is amended on the disc itself each time the disc is written to. And recovering data from a corrupted hard drive is a hassle too.

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The "in RAM" statement is fact, at least for DirectCD. Feel free to ask any of the engineers at Adaptec/Roxio (if they're still there). I'm sure their ears still burn from some of the beta team reports. The failure won't occur on every possible failed write, but it will occur. It was a repeatable, demonstrable failure that was easily induced in the lab. They decided their reasons for adopting that tactic outweighed the risk of disc failure. That decision was solely responsible for the birth of your "packet writing sucks" crowd.

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" Any time the formatted CD is in the drive your data is subject to being overwritten or deleted. Since everything is accessible like your other drives, a file altering or destroying virus could attack the files on the CD."

Uh, that can happen with a hard drive too, and CD-R's, and though I don't have one I bet the same holds true for a Zip Drive. Viruses can attack most anything on your computer, from floppies to the BIOS.

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We aren't talking about hard drives or anything else magnetic. Feel free to send me the virus that can erase files on my write-once (what you call CD-R) discs. I'd like to study it.

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" If you MOVE something to the CD you are really counting on things going perfectly."

Yeah? Moving something to a CD-R has it's risks. Moving something from one folder to another on a HD has it's risks. Moving something to a floppy has it's risks.

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You don't move things to write-once CD. They're copied by definition. A MOVE command, which by definition deletes the source files, is inherently risky, whether it's from partition to partition or to an erasable disc. The odds of failure, though, while still quite in the users favor, are much higher for the disc write event than for to the hard drive.

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"Packet written CDs can’t be read on computers without packet writing without installing a UDF reader."

Doesn't Windows have a UDF reader built in? (Seems I read that somewhere, but admittedly I don't know. I don't think it does in '98, but keep reading. Since this thing has ME I'd experiment, but the UDF reader in my Add/Remove box can't be uninstalled. Is that a Windows or HP setup?). UDF readers are offered by Roxio and Nero, small files easily backed up to a floppy. AND DirectCD always puts a UDF reader on the disc, as part of the wasted space, just to bypass the supposed "problem". The first RW I took to a friends house popped up a box asking if he wanted to install the Reader. He uses '98. No pain at all.

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Ahh, here's where some of the fun happens. First, not every version of DCD includes the admittedly cool self-installing reader. I'm probably wrong, but I believe it was dropped from the current version too (although this might be an XP-compatibility issue more than anything). Then, not every packet-writer produces standard UDF discs. You can't even mix versions of DCD on the same disc. So much for the "U" part (which stands for Universal for the 5 people who haven't passed out by now). The Nero reader doesn't always read DCD discs, and the Adaptec/Roxio doesn't always read InCD's. Such is life. Nobody ever presented packet'ers as a way to move data across machines or platforms, I don't hold that against them. DOS machines can't read them either (although they'll read ordinary mastered CD's without trouble).

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"RW's are only 650Mb and formatting takes over a hundred, so you typically have only about 530 or so Mb to write to."

Shouldn't be too big of a deal 99 percent of the time, since by it's very nature packet writing is designed to be used here and there, to complement the HD, if you will. It's understood that the RW has limited capacity, same as a CD-R, and it isn't going to be constantly whirring and being written to (and file swapped) like setups with two HD's at once. And as far as the superiority of CD-R's in this instance, you could've mentioned that 700 meg CD-R's are technically "outlaw" discs. Though more and more rare, some machines, usually the older ones, have trouble reading the outer part of the disc, so you might not gain that extra 50 megs. You'll never know that until you try it for yourself. See below for more of the housekeeping "problem".

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When packet-writing was new -- and this was a long, long time ago -- hard drives were pretty small by today's standards. I routinely download more in a couple of hours now than the hard drive on my original DirectCD installation could hold. Then, the ability to put nearly 650MB (this was before erasables) of additional storage on line that behaved just like a giant disk was a godsend. I believe that advantage is virtually moot now with today's cavernous hard drives (actually, I made this same argument back when 10GB was a lot, today is no comparison.
For reference, the 700MB discs are not "outlaw's". They conform to the very tightest spiral one can use and remain within the specification. That is why they qualify for the "Compact Disc" emblem. Discs that are out-of-spec (like the new 90 and 99 minute) are non-conforming, and may not "wear the badge".

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"You will eventually wish you had kept something you erased."

Dang, we'll ALL feel that someday when the HD dies! You risk losing something with a hard drive or floppy or ZIP Drive. The user has responsibility to keep up with what he/she thinks is special. That's the purpose of backing up to begin with on any media. So why make an RW the whipping boy?

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I'm not whipping, but you can't erase a write-once disc, no matter how hard you try. Like anything else, they can be physically mishandled, of course, but you can't pop a write-once disc in the drive and absent-mindedly click OK to "Are you sure you want to erase? All data will be lost".

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"There are people who make good use of packet writing, but most people who want to use their burner for backup learn that stuff is much safer on CDR."

"Most" people? Sounds like a broad sweeping statement. "Most" people, if they'd give RW's a try, would find they aren't nearly as bad as what they're made out to be. And we all understand that CD-R's are permanent. (Or are they?) Maybe we want to accumulate a little bit before we burn to a CD-R. As a for instance, let's say I save all manner of stuff concerning September the 11th, or my favorite movie star, whatever. Bunch it up on a RW. To be safe, and since they're so cheap, make dupes, 3, 4, however you feel the stuff is important. Then transfer it to a CD-R, instead of having stuff scattered on several discs. And when you're done, that RW can be used for something else.

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see "cavernous hard drives", above.

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"You can write multi-session to CDR so you can read what is on it but add more sessions. Housekeeping costs are about 14Mb/session, so if you add in very small sessions you can end up with less space for data than with a packet written RW."
So, in 10 sessions the housekeeping adds up to 140 megs, comparably what you'll lose in formatting an RW. So where's the real advantage?

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I certainly wouldn't advocate 10 sessions. That's only 50MB or so at a time. I'm not cranking up the burner for that, unless it's really important. If it is, it's worth a whole twenty-cent disc.?

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And isn't there risk in losing data every time you do another session with a CD-R? After all, if the TOC is damaged, you can't do a full erase and salvage the disc. At least a rewriteable isn't a total loss.?

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Well, there's risk in anything I suppose. But I'm not sweating the twenty cents too much.

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Yes, formatting comes at a price. One reason you forgot to mention is that part of the "wasted" space is necessary to prevent hot spots, premature wear on the disc where it's been written to and erased many times in the same general area, and granted it's something you don't worry about with a CD-R. I don't necessarily like losing that much space on a disc, but I live with it, especially considering how cheap RW's are.

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The formatting space has nothing to do with the technique used to avoid writing the same sectors over and over. The original erasable-compatible release of DCD didn't do that neat trick, but still, err, wasted the 125MB or so. It is the sector markers that consume the space, much like what happens when a raw 2MB floppy is formatted into the 1.44MB 3.5" diskette that's probably drawing its last breaths this year. The ability to write and erase individual files comes at a price. We'll have to agree to disagree on the practicality of that ability.

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You might also want to mention that so many sessions and you might lose track of just how much space is used and how much is left on a CD-R. I've had problems with it. And closing a CD-R uses housekeeping space as well. There have been more than a couple of threads around here about problems with discs still open.

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This is solely a software issue. Nero will warn you that the disc you intend to burn will not have enough room to properly close and will offer to close the disc for you. I see far more instances of 'overfilling' a write-once disc with DirectCD than with multi-session mastering. It's made even worse when the optional compression is employed with DCD (since it guesses as to whether the file will fit or not). Put another mark in the hard-to-read column too. The compressed packet-written discs... oh, you get the point.

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I could also say your arguments for using CD-R's so exclusively are wasteful. Where do all the coasters go?

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I don't make any -- or not many anyway. I keep an old 100-disc spindle to store them all on, going all the way back to the beginning and my old 2x recorder. I put those stupid AOL discs on it too :) In seven years I'm about halfway up, including the intentional beta test failures ("See if it ignores the tray-open button" "No?" "Bummer. What recorder is that again?")

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RW's aren't perfect, and if anyone has only one or two they depend on they're asking for trouble, and especially if they use them for long term storage. Mine never get a chance to collect dust, the way they're always being amended. If you're going to be a casual user, or backup only when the HD makes weird noises, maybe you should install another HD?

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No, they're not perfect, and that was what the original poster was asking about. Are they easy? Sure. Is anyone in their right mind using them to store anything for the long haul? :)

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For me packet writing has been a workhorse. It's nowhere near the demon it's made out to be.

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You're right, They just need a better agent.

NoBoB.......What Do I say!! Well Versed, Well Said, Well Writen,Quite True,
Well Done...At Least you did'nt knock it to pieces...Are you FOR or Against, not quite sure this way...Probibly middle of road...!!
I do Agree that Packet Writing as is, Stinks and could be better...At the moo I use it cause it's convenient and Good for my Photography until I'm ready to put final version onto CDR...
Will Mount Rainer be better, will everyone have to buy new Burners to use it, if so that will Suck big time...I think there is one point We Will all Agree On....There will always be "The Fors" n "The Against"...If something is working Good for You, Keep useing it ...If it gives you problems try something else...If you can't solve it...Come To Good Old 'Virtualdr'...The Best Forum around for any Queries, Questions, or Point of Veiws...And Very Good Discusions...I for one have Learnt a Great Deal through this Forum, THANKS to Everyone Here...Keep Up The GOOD WORK...Once again THANKS.... P.S.........I find this interesting, so Any More Comments on the 'for or against'....
Catch ya later, your friend, Dennis.:D

Hey, can you boot a Packet written CD? like can I copy a 512mb to cd, and boot from it? Or is the only bootable cd's the "EL Torito" method.

Packet-written CD's can not be made to boot. Until an operating system that loads appropriate software and/or drivers is booted, those discs aren't readable. Perhaps down the road, the bootable CD specs will include UDF-reading, but for now, they don't boot.

scarecrowdr, you are correct about there always being a Pro vs Con in just about everything. It's up to the user to weigh that information and decide for himself. JoJo obviously has had a good deal of success using erasables and packet-writing, and nobod expects him to stop using either based on my opinions.

And I did come down on one side, way at the top, where I claimed Charter Membership in the Packet Naysayers club, but that was so far back that by the time you get to the bottom, you forget :D

Thanks for helping me prove my point, NoBoB. You come right out of the gate making a comment about me owning stock in Roxio. You seem to have missed the fact I said I wanted to try other software, the all hallowed Nero being the prime example. Let's also not forget that software is only one link in the chain. If the burner isn't any good, you have failures. Same for discs. And the subject here is ultimately about RW's themselves.


"I wish it was just a flame, but a simple search of these archives will bear out plenty of others with similar, but perhaps not so dramatic, experiences. I must point out that it was the original poster who reported trouble at about 20. It really doesn't matter to him if I can do 2 or you can do 50,000. He's experiencing trouble. I'm sure your next post will explain to him what he's
doing wrong."

Why put the burden on me? Perhaps Slipe could've done that as well, instead of making such a long one sided post against RW's. And anyway, by the time I found this thread and wrote a response Redhorse had already made his/her mind up. But I posted anyway, because there are others out there who might read this.



"Modern recorders, for the most part, are equipped with buffer underrun protection of some type. Once the user has found a brand of disc that matches well to his recorder and playback equipment, failed burns should be exceptionally rare….."

Be careful here. Are you including RW's in this?



"The "in RAM" statement is fact, at least for DirectCD. Feel free to ask any of the engineers at Adaptec/Roxio (if they're still there). I'm sure their ears still burn from some of the beta team reports. The failure won't occur on every possible failed write, but it will occur. It was a repeatable, demonstrable failure that was easily induced in the lab. They decided their reasons for adopting that tactic outweighed the risk of disc failure. That decision was
solely responsible for the birth of your "packet writing sucks" crowd."


Hey, all I know is that I haven't lost any data. I can't vouch for what might happen for using other programs. I told my story because Slipe said it was a given, and clearly it's not.

EDIT- I don't want anyone getting the idea that it's okay to leave the discs in the drawer all the time. On the contrary, it's always the good idea to take them out when you know you're through using them.



"We aren't talking about hard drives or anything else magnetic. Feel free to send me the virus that can erase files on my write-once (what you call CD-R) discs. I'd like to study it."

You don't see where I was coming from? Data on your hard drive is also subject to being overwritten or deleted, by carelessness, or a power failure, or a virus, etc. Slipe was making it sound as if RW's were more risky, and I called him on it, nothing more. And are we not overall talking about using CD-R's in multi-session, as compared to RW's? If the disc is open, it's susceptible to a virus in the next session. If we're just talking about CD-R's being written to once and closed, then it's all moot.




"You don't move things to write-once CD. They're copied by definition. A MOVE command, which by definition deletes the source files, is inherently risky, whether it's from partition to partition or to an erasable disc. The odds of failure, though, while still quite in the users favor, are much higher for the disc write event than for to the hard drive."

That's a moot point. Using "Move To" with an RW is a foolhardy thing. I wouldn't do it with a second HD either. I copy, then verify. Actually for the stuff most precious I'll copy things to two discs, maybe more.



You made mention of some of the problems inherent with UDF readers. I've no doubt there will be problems and compatibility issues. BUT that's not the fault of the lowly RW, right? It's the fault of Roxio and Nero and anyone else who hasn't truly sat down and worked up a standard and stuck with it, or adhered to the one supposedly in place already.


"I'm not whipping, but you can't erase a write-once disc, no matter how hard you try. Like anything else, they can be physically mishandled, of course, but you can't pop a write-once disc in the drive and absent-mindedly click OK to "Are
you sure you want to erase? All data will be lost". "

C'mon. You're falling into the "it's such a pain" stuff. We all know CD-R's are like that. In your zeal to demonize the RW you also don't acknowledge that ultimately it's the responsibility of the user to be careful. Since you can absent mindedly erase something off a floppy or ZIP Drive or a second HD, why flog the RW? And don't ignore the risks of CD-R's with open sessions either.



"I certainly wouldn't advocate 10 sessions. That's only 50MB or so at a time. I'm not cranking up the burner for that, unless it's really important. If it is, it's worth a whole twenty-cent disc.?"

Well, I addressed some of this in a later post. But I'm glad we at least agree on it.



"The formatting space has nothing to do with the technique used to avoid writing the same sectors over and over. The original erasable-compatible release of DCD didn't do that neat trick, but still, err, wasted the 125MB or so. It is the sector markers that consume the space, much like what happens when a raw 2MB floppy is formatted into the 1.44MB 3.5" diskette that's probably drawing its last breaths this year. The ability to write and erase individual files comes at a price. We'll have to agree to disagree on the practicality of that ability."

Actually, it does, and I posted a link around here several months back from a site that discussed it, but the thread is apparently gone, (and dang if I can't find that site again. I've been looking for it for a couple of hours, and it seems originally I happened upon it quick. But ain't that how things go?). For what it's worth, Slipe might remember it. He made a post or two in that thread. It had a little to do with writing 10,000 times to a disc etc. Apparently the changeover erased it?



As far as backing up to RW's being "slow"? :)


http://www.cd-rw.org/news/archive/3229.cfm

I finally found the article which discusses the overhead DirectCD uses in keeping up with possible "hot spots" on the RW. So, NoBoB, it reads as if that wasn't included in the original UDF specs, but added later.


http://www.pctechguide.com/09cdr-rw.htm


…."The UDF 1.5 solution is far from ideal however. Quite apart from the difficulties caused by lack of operating system support, there are other issues. The major drawback is that the fixed-length packets (of 32KB as per the UDF standard), take up a great deal of overhead space on the disc. The available capacity of a CD-RW disc formatted for writing in fixed-length packets is reduced to about 550MB. In practice, however, the capacity of a UDF-formatted disc is reduced still further as a consequence of DirectCD's built-in features to increase the longevity of CD-RW media.
Any particular spot on a CD-RW disc can be erased and rewritten about 1000 times (soon to be improved to 10,000). After that, that particular spot becomes unusable. However, DirectCD is designed to avoid the same physical location being repeatedly written to and erased, using a technique called "sparing". This significantly extends the life of a disc, but at the cost of an overhead which reduces effective storage capacity. Even if a particular location on a CD-RW disc does get "burned out", DirectCD can mark it "unusable" and work around it (much the way bad sectors are managed on a hard disk). Consequently, it is highly unlikely that a CD-RW disc will become worn out."


Perhaps we all are confusing the TOC with the VAT.


"....Under UDF, even when a file is overwritten, its virtual address remains the same. At the end of each packet-writing session, UDF writes a Virtual Allocation Table (VAT) to the disc that describes the physical locations of each file. Each newly created VAT includes data from the previous VAT, thereby letting UDF locate all the files that have ever written to the disc."

I knew better than to make a 3-foot-long post, but I did it anyway. Serves me right. I'm not bothering with the quotes and the pasting. It's just too much work, and I'm almost out of beer. Here we go :)

The Adaptec comment was made with the smiley face, as in "not to be taken seriously". Your claimed experience, however, is with DirectCD... Yes, the burner could be junk, the blanks too, the power in the building, maybe his biorythms are off too. If it was just him, I'd consider those things, but I've answered too many of the "hey my erasable doesn't read anymore" threads on boards like this to even bother. I'm pompous enough to believe if they (erasables)'ve let me down in the past, they'll fail for others too.

I wasn't trying to "burden" you. slipe believes he knows what the problem is, and his solution is the time-honored " 'Doctor, it hurts when I do this'. 'Then don't do that' ". I concur.

Including erasables? No, I'm telling him not to use them, remember?

"Hey, all I know is I haven't lost any..." Yes, so I've read. My brother runs stop signs all the time ("stop? nah, I've never been in a wreck"). I stop at them anyway.

slipe's contention of risk was in comparison to write-once, mastered discs. An infected system places a write-once disc in no danger whatsoever when it reads it. An erasable -- especially one written with packets -- is in an inherently more tenuous condition. Perhaps not more so than a hard drive, but "the subject here is ultimately about RW's themselves", right? Files on write-once multi-session discs are not in any danger from a virus. The worst that could possibly happen is the remaining capacity filled with garbage and the link to the previous session severed. The data is still intact, and uninfected. It might be a bit of an effort to recover it, but when recovered, it's undamaged.

Let's dispense with all the "ultimately, the user's responsible..." rhetoric. The fact is, with the notable exception of the fine collected minds of the membership of VDr, the majority of users are utter morons. You know it, I know it, and everyone at VDr knows it. Anyone who'd like to take a contrary position to that should be forewarned: My first response is "AOL has 30 million subscribers" :D Seriously, it isn't the user's fault if a power failure or Windows crash renders his erasable unreadable. Once in a while, they get so badly hosed they can't even be erased. Yes, write-once discs are vulnerable too, I know. But only while the "write-in-progress" light is on. What really scrambles a users mind is a dsic can be damaged when it's technically not being written to. At least if a write-once burn session fails, you know. There's no post-reboot surprises.

The UDF reader problems were offered solely as "nail-in-the-coffin" material for packets. Remember, this thread was originally basically "I want to try some erasables for packet-writing, but they're not working well, and some say packets suck. Should I packet-write?". It isn't necessarily a referendum on erasable vs. write-once, but I've seen enough user reported difficulty to advise against erasables for general use. They do have a role. I'm not advocating an outright ban.

I misread where you brought up the sparing overhead. I thought you were claiming the entire overhead for that, but that wasn't what you said. The actual amount, something on the order of 16MB or so if memory serves, isn't much though. The vast majority is still the sector markers.

And yes, in reality, it is the Virtual Table that's at risk. When I first brought that up, I used to say something like "effectively keeping the TOC in RAM", to avoid the boring technical details, but eventually it just became TOC. Sometimes I try not to go into too much technical detail. Maybe I shouldn't do that. The effect's the same, though. You can just about always go back to a previous session on a multi-session disc. A packet disc may not be recoverable.

Now I really AM out of beer :)

I have to vote for Packet Writing under the right circumstances. I have 2 desktops, each with a CDRW drive. I have found from experience that a CD-RW disc formated on machine A should never be written or erased by machine B. However, I constantly move files from machine A to machine B by first writing the files to the CD-RW disc, transporting the disk from machine A to B, and copying the files from the CD-RW to Machine B.

I later erase the CD-RW on Machine A, erase the original files on machine A and repeat the process. This has been a reliable procedure with no failures. This is cheaper than moving the files with a CDR and throwing it away later.

I also use CDR's extensively for permanent storage or backup of files that I wish to keep. I would agree with the comments regarding their higher reliability for this usage.

CD media are just tools used to accomplish a particular objective and the right tools, when used properly, make the process easier. It all depends on what your objective is.

"They say you can erase a RW a thousand times. That might be true, but you can write to one only about 20 times and it becomes unreliable."

You state that as fact. Is that from your own personal experience, or are you just keeping the flame?

Here is just one thread I happened to reply to recently: http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?threadid=90745 I have run across dozens like it and even more from people who lost data to packet writing. Interestingly, Alex was saying that he only got a month from his RWs on a board we posted on that has been defunct for two years – so he isn’t new to what he is doing.

Moving something to a CD-R has it's risks. Moving something from one folder to another on a HD has it's risks. Moving something to a floppy has it's risks.

You can’t MOVE something to a CDR unless you are packet writing to CDR with DirectCD. I don’t think any rational person erases the source until they have checked the recording. I would hope there isn’t anyone dumb enough to MOVE something to a floppy. “Send to” floppy is a copy command. Most people move folders on their hard drive, and I see no difference in reliability moving to another drive. One of the conveniences of packet writing is the ability to move stuff to the drive – I’m just saying that is a good way to lose data based on numerous posts.

RW's can be used for practice or test burns

I recommend that to people new to CD writing. It has nothing to do with packet writing, which is the subject of this thread. There is often no relationship between a software test burn and an actual burn, so doing the test to RW is a great idea. Once you get the hang of CD writing there is no reason to do a test burn in the first place – either with the software or RW. You have to check the recording anyway regardless of what medium and method you are using.

Cheap CD-R's aren't so cheap when you get them with rebates, and everybody and their Granny is sending you spam afterwards.

You are really reaching. Everyone has a “dump” address for such purposes, and I have never seen a rebate form with the e-mail address as a required field. I don’t think it would be legal to advertise a rebate and refuse to honor it because the person does not have an e-mail account. I have some left of a box of 200 that came with a full rebate, free shipping and a $10 new customer discount. I make a nickel every time I burn one. It really irritates me when they rebate the full price of the CDs but make me pay the sales tax – I mean free should be FREE!

Holy cow, what propaganda and scare tactics from the "packet writing sucks" crowd!?!

Since mine was the only post you could have been responding to I think that was completely inappropriate. In that post I said It is useful for someone who makes daily backups of a large amount of stuff or is set up to add or overwrite just data that has changed. and There are people who make good use of packet writing Then I gave reasons for what I thought were deficiencies in using it instead of mastering software. keeping the flame - scare tactics - propaganda Those are common statements from people without substance to their viewpoints. There is no conspiracy against packet writing. It just has limitations that need pointing out.

This is a representative thread of what is available in hard drives: http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/...eid=1029897604 You don’t even need 7200 RPM for storage. To keep stuff temporarily on multiple packet written RWs and have to sort through them to find what you are looking for is silly IMHO. Both Divergent Species transporting data between computers and Alex Ethridge’s large daily backups support my statement that There are people who make good use of packet writing. I just think it is a really poor substitute for an inexpensive second hard drive.

Everyone here seems to agree that multi session CDRs are the best way to store vital data you have otherwise erased. I would add packet writing to CDR with DirectCD to that list. If you don’t generate large amounts of data, packet writing to CDR uses only about half the housekeeping space per session and the data is as secure as writing it with mastering software. You also don’t have the long and space consuming format. I still wouldn’t MOVE my only copy of something.

At the risk of stiring up this hornets nest some more, let me chip in with some experiences in favour of packet writing to CD R/Ws.

I have been using such since 1999 and of the original discs (some Traxdata and some HP) have had only one failure so am considerable in excess of the "Use 20 times" comment. In fact my experience has been that they are about as reliable as diskettes. These disks have been used now in three CD writers without problems.

For permanent off-line storage however I advocate that, just as with diskettes, never trust your important data to just one disk.

I always used this as my bottom line... if it does what you want or need it to do, it is a good thing. If it doesn't... well, you get the picture.

Under different situations, you will have different results. The end result is based on the weakest link in your production of the CDs- whether it is the brand or type of CDR/RWs, the program used to create the CDs, or the writer, etc.

As for backing data up to CDRs or CDRs, the same rule applies as backing up to tape or any other medium - don't wait until a disaster occurs to test the validity of the data being backed up.

I certainly have to agree with mfutty – a packet written backup is about a million times better than none at all.

Many different views on my initial post. Thanks for all your knowldge and aspects. Interesting. I just started this packet writing option with only one disc and was succesful in removing and replacing files in the testing stage. I just wanted opinions and I sure got them I didn't think it would raise such a "sticky" situation between members. AS the old saying goes "if it aint broke don't fix it"
I will resume with my packet writing.
Seen some threads on Mount Rainier in the NG's. Will have to look into that also for future.
Thanks
Redhorse
PS Back on the the "top" again for a few minutes