Re: [Dvdrtools-users] DVD+R/+RW support

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Fri, 2005-03-25 at 08:09 -0500, F. Heitkamp wrote:
> Tried your suggestions.

Understand I've never formatted a DVD-RAM disc.
I've always just mounted and it worked.

In the old days, I had to use the UDFTools for a few things.
But you never have to format a DVD-RAM disc.

Some people have tried to format it Ext2 with merely:
 mke2fs /dev/hdc
Or possibly (see below):
 mke2fs /dev/hdc4

I have _never_ done this myself, I always just use the UDF pre-format.

> I even tried just using fdisk /dev/hdc:
> address@hidden:/usr/sbin# fdisk /dev/hdc

Nope, that won't work.  There is no "partition table."
It's like any other removable media in that regard.

> You will not be able to write the partition table.
> Note: sector size is 2048 (not 512)
> Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF 
> disklabel

Correct, because media's don't.
It's why Microsoft can't use a Dynamic Disk (LDM disk label) on
removable media.  (and why NTFS can't safely be used as a result)

> Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
> until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
> content won't be recoverable.
> Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by 
> w(rite)
> Command (m for help): w
> Unable to write /dev/hdc

Linux typically emulates the FAT filesystem on Zip discs as partition 4.
I know if you format DVD-RAM as Ext2 if you address /dev/hdc4 -- because
I've never done it.  I've always just used the DVD-RAM straight up.

What distro are you using?  I've just had 0 issue since Red Hat Linux
7.x.  They seem to ship all the kernel/user-space tools needed.

> This disk was written on a Panasonic DVD-RAM recorder.  Do you think that 
> might have something to do with it?

Nope.  DVD-RAM is DVD-RAM, pre-formatted and UDF.

> Maybe I should boot into Windows and try the tools that came with the 
> drive unless there is a way to do it under Linux.

Yes, the UDFTools for Linux can tell you a lot.  You shouldn't need to
reformat though.  DVD-RAM is always pre-formatted UDF, ready-to-use.

Although some people do re-format Ext2.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                  address@hidden 
---------------------------------------------------------------- 
Community software is all about choice, choice of technology.
Unfortunately, too many Linux advocates port over the so-called
"choice" from the commercial software world, brand name marketing.
The result is false assumptions, failure to focus on the real
technical similarities, but loyalty to blind vendor alignments.