cdrecord cannot blank CD RW- - what about formating them.

[Paul Howarth]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> Aaron Konstam wrote:
>> On Sun, 2006-05-14 at 23:02 +0530, nirlep patel wrote:
>>> well my suggestion is you should follow this path:
>>>
>>> I am using Fedora Core 4.
>>> Application -> Sound & Video -> K3b
>>>
>>> I used with this and I have erased my CD-RW so many times, just go
>>> through this , it's a very easy.
>>>
>>> hope you will solve..
>>>
>> I have to complain here. It would be nice if Linux could format these
>> CD-s , not just erase them.
> 
> One does not 'format' a cd/r. The format is established as it is written 
> since it is not a discrete track oriented format, but is a single spiral 
> track somewhat resembling a phonograph record but inside out.

There's a "UDF" or "packet-writing" format that can be used to treat a 
rewritable disc like a big floppy. I guess that's what Aaron's referring 
to. Everything I come up with on google for this is pretty ancient 
though so I suspect it won't work on recent kernels.

Paul.