Formatting DVD-RAM disks

[bill]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Hello,

I am running WIndows XP with SP2 and have a LG 4081b super-multi drive
plugged into my computer through firewire.

I cannot reformat the DVD-RAM diske in Fat32 format. I always get a
"Windows was unable to complete the format" error. The error always occours
at the end of the format, either with as quick or a full format.



I read Article: 836165 "The formatting operation is unsuccessful when you
try to format a DVD-RAM disc as FAT32 after you use InCD 4". I do not have
InCD installed on my computer.


I used to be able to format these disks. A couple things happened around
the time that the errors started: I may have formatted these disks in Knoppix
Linux, and SP2 was installed.

How can I get these DVD-RAM disks formatted?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Bill, have you had any response yet from anyone, or solved your problem?
(cannot tell whether the date is 9th May, or 5th Sep).

I have the same drive and was using DVD RAM disks quite successfully, albeit
very slow (after formatting to FAT32 in winXP) up until a few weeks ago. I
cannot tell what happened or why, but when I bought some Memorex DVD+RW 4X,
WinXP choked on them and has never worked properly with the drive since. XP
and the drive together cannot write/Format or recognise DVD-R, DVD+RW or DVD
RAM drives or their capacities correctly allthough XP can read the written
files off the DVD-R,+RW, that I burned using Nero (Nero does not seem to do
RAM disks). I moved the drive to a onother "clean" winXP machine and it was
the same there. So I assumed the drive was faulty and bought a new Pioneer
DVR-110D (no DVD-RAM capability). It behaved the same way with WinXP so now I
suspect WinXP and its drivers, but cannot track down the problem. (Subject of
another thread, I think)

For DVD-RAM work, I loaded a "version" of the Panasonic/Matsushita driver
from this link ( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7592
) and it seems to work well - courtesy of MOBILENVIDIA. It has its own
FAT32/UDF formatting program (I use FAT32, as that has a write path in XP).
Then WinXP sees the DVD-RAM drive and gets the capacity (free and used)
correct and you can "drag and drop" windows files to the media.

Panasonic also have the "original" driver at the link below, but I have not
tried it as their web page does not specifically state it will work with the
LG 4081b drive.
http://panasonic.co.jp/psec/data/mkehp/docs/driver/XP2220NE.EXE

Hope this is of some help to you for formatting DVD-RAM disks.

(Also as an aside, I was switching to DVD+RW because XP is so slow in
writing large numbers of files to RAM disks in FAT 32. (I archive my photo
library to RAM - now DVD+RW). UDF is supposed to be faster, but I never
tried it, and +RW was slightly faster on the LG than -RW.)

I also hope that others reading this thread can suggest why WinXP cannot
"see" blank and written DVD-R,+RW discs correctly.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bill" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am running WIndows XP with SP2 and have a LG 4081b super-multi drive
> plugged into my computer through firewire.
>
> I cannot reformat the DVD-RAM diske in Fat32 format. I always get a
> "Windows was unable to complete the format" error. The error always occours
> at the end of the format, either with as quick or a full format.
>
>
>
> I read Article: 836165 "The formatting operation is unsuccessful when you
> try to format a DVD-RAM disc as FAT32 after you use InCD 4". I do not have
> InCD installed on my computer.
>
>
> I used to be able to format these disks. A couple things happened around
> the time that the errors started: I may have formatted these disks in Knoppix
> Linux, and SP2 was installed.
>
> How can I get these DVD-RAM disks formatted?
>
> Thanks for your help.