Its probably a stupid question and a bunch of problems even more stupid. Here goes: I wanted to use an
CD-RW as backup-medium, using K3b.

When I tried to burn I got error 255 and the explanation that its a read-only medium. Okay, so I looked at fstab and changed to rw. Error stays the same. Further information says, the medium is UDF and no ISO file-system.

True. Problem was, the medium was unformatted and I had problems to format (neither K3b nor command-line accommodated me . So I used InCD (comes with Nero 5.5) under WinNT, which produces an oversized floppy (?).

Now SuSE refuses also mkisofs and mformat on /dev/cdrecorder. What do I do?? Anybody any ideas? What am I doing wrong?

Does your kernel have UDF support? And even if it has, UDF write support is very experimental anyway in Linux. My guess is if you use the distro supplied kernel, it doesn't have UDF write support for that reason. I'd say stick to iso for the time being, udf uses a huge overhead anyway.

So what's stopping you from using:
cdrecord dev=x,x,x speed=x blank=all -v -eject

?

I would think this would work regardless of the filesystem on the device, and I'm pretty sure it's not a permissions problem if you can write to CDR's.

Cool

Thankyou both for your answers.

But the question remains, how do I get rid of the UDF File-system, which seems to cause my difficulties? I mean, when I want to format a medium the mformat-command shouldnt fail, just because there is something already on the medium in the burner ... is there an explicit comand to remove a file-system like UDF?

As to the suggestion to use cdrecord: K3b is very comfortable to use and maintain archives and I am talking about hundres of files to backup. I also like to understand what my computer is doing and I want to know why, when it isnt.

Thanks for any help.

All the more reason to use cdrecord then. You can see what it's doing, use the -v flag in the command.

As for getting rid of the udf filesystem, that's what I was saying above, use the above command with cdrecord to blank the disc, I believe this rewrites the filesystem, or rather removes the old filesystem from the disc and should be ready for what you plan to use next.

Cool

Okay, I didn't know that. I will try out cdrecord's virtues and tell you about (hopefully) my success on Monday.

@world: how do I correctly format an unformatted blank CD-RW? (Please tell me the entire chain of commands you use, including your preferred options - fastest way to learn is by looking over virtual shoulders ).

A blank cd does not need formatting. If it helps here is the script I use to write them

#
# writes a cd from an image file
#
# written 24/6/00 last update 11/2/03
#
# amended to use pipe rather than tempory file
#
cd_device="1,0,0"
#
if [ -z $1 ];
then
echo " "
echo "type cd_write /a/path/where/the/file(s)are bootimage (optional)"
echo " "
echo "cd_write xxxx image .. to write a pure image to cd"
exit
fi
insmod -k ide-mod
insmod -k ide-scsi
if [ $2 = "image" ]; then
echo "Writing pure image file"
cdrecord speed=4 dev=$cd_device $1
exit
fi
if [ -z $2 ]; then
mkisofs -r -v -J $1 | cdrecord -v -speed=4 dev=$cd_device -
else
mkisofs -r -v -J -b $2 $1 | cdrecord -v -speed=4 dev=$cd_device -
fi
#


And here is the one to erase them

#!/bin/sh
#
# erase a cd rw disk
#
cd_device="1,0,0"
umount /cdrom
#
# in case its mounted
#
#insmod -k ide-mod
insmod -k ide-scsi
cdrecord dev=$cd_device blank=fast speed=4
#


I also use directcd under windoze. I can read those cd's under linux. But as said in an earlier post I would not write them until linux has full udf support.

Hi Lazarus,

you write "A blank CD does not need formatting. " As I wrote in my first posting I used InCD (comes with Nero 5.5) under WinNT, which definitely complained that the medium was unformatted and I did format it there. Are you certain that ISO9660 or ext2 etc don't need track and sector information?

Thanks for sharing your scripts! I'll try them tonight.

Here's my understanding of all this...

InCD is probably packet writing software. This allows "drag and drop" of files to a device for writing, not iso creation then burning of the image.

That's where the "udf" filesystem problem comes in. Packet Writing uses udf as it's filesystem.

There is a project out there for packet writing in linux, however it's a waste of space (from the formatting) if you ask me.

As for standard cdr's and cdrw's they do not need formatting because the iso9660 filesystem is written into the iso when it is created (with RockRidge or Joliet file extensions). SO...

You do not need to format the discs. Simply erase them with:
cdrecord dev=x,x,x speed=x -v -eject blank=all

blank=all is required to remove that "crappy" packet writing udf filesystem that is on the CD, after that you can use the "blank=fast" option which is amazingly faster.



Cool

Good morning, all.

I tried some of the above over the weekend, but left a few strands loose. Currently cdrecord gives no error, but ls -l shows an empty directory. I left out the -eject-Option though and by now I seem to remember, that it is essential. I will try again and come back on Wednesday.

The blanking at least ran without any error.

Your help here is greatly appreciated. Thanks again, everybody.

Because you want to learn more, you should read the manpages (man mkisofs and man cdrecord) and this howto: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO.html
It's an older howto but especially chapter 3 I found very helpful.

mkisofs creates an image that can be burned to the cd. cdwrite then writes this to cd. mkisofs can pipe its image straight into cdwrite as I do in my script. On my script you can see progress as it goes and if there are any errors. To access to cd it should be mounted thus.

mount -t iso9660 /dev/scd0 /cdrom

scdo may be different on your pc. Sometimes /dev/cdrom is a link to the correct device.

FYI, -eject would really be of no "essential" use, it's simply there to eject the cd when cdrecord is finished. After blanking was successful and you have an iso you've created, if cdrecord finished with no errors, and actually wrote data (-v should have shown that) then you need to mount it, and THEN you can ls the files.

Check out that link above to the cdwriting how to, good info there.

Cool

One after another, please!

@yngwin: Big thanks for that URL, that's a real treasure trove. I once new it existed but I somehow managed to forget its existence...

Howtos are a little problematic for my taste. To get a real overview they must be printed so one can easily scan back and forth -- but thats no reason not to use them.

@Lazarus: Okay, I think I do understand now. I will try your procedure and do ls -l after mounting -- but it eludes me, how the device can be not mounted after writing to it (automatic umount in cdrecord?).

@MasterC: Mhm. I somehow assumed that an associated flushing of write-buffers was the reason for the -eject. I will try the other part tonight and present my results tomorrow (Wednesday).

Thanks & Bye.

cdwrite does not mount the device, it cant since at that stage it has no file system on it. Once it has you have to mount it to read it. For example I used to make bootable floppies thus

cat /boot/linux/vmlinuz > /dev/fd0

Never try that with a disk with anything you want on it, any fs and data would be lost for good.