Write to CDRW using UDF

Question

I just installed a new Dell Dimension 3000 with a 48x CD-RW Drive (P48CDRW) and XP Home in my wife's office. I have used UDF for CDRW burning in the past under OS/2 and after formatting the media, the drive was seen as a removable drive and I could do anything with it that I could do with any other removable drive. Is that the case with UDF formatted drives under XP as well?

My problem is that she needs it to backup her data in QuickBooks 2005. But when I try to set the backup destination to U:\ QuickBooks keeps resetting it to a driectory on C: drive. It won't allow me to write the backup to the CDRW. I can write it to other drives, and then I can then drag the backup file to the CDRW drive and it is written, but that is a needless step hat makes the backup process cumbersome. Is there a way to make XP treat the CDRW as a writeable drive from within applications? Or is this a Quickbooks' problem that I need to take up with Intuit?

Since this is the sole reason for buying this machine (running Quickbooks and backing up to CDRW) I really need to figure out why it isn't working, so any help is appreciated.

Mark

Predator · Answer

Hi Mark,

Here is a Microsoft article on Quicken:

Cannot Back Up Quicken Files to CD. Q316415

Best Regards

God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.

CD/RW Link

madodel · Answer

Thanks for the link, but my God this is horrible. According to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316415 XP doesn't support standard UDF packet writing. And the three options listed, install something that does, copy to disk and then drag it to the CDRW, save it to the CD Burning folder and then go through the idiotic step of clicking to write them to the CDRW.

Does the CD Burning software that comes with the Dell Demension 3000 (Sonic something or other I think) support direct writing to a drive? It's rediculous to have to do a two part process for this. I have had the ability to write directly to CDRW via UDF under OS/2 for years now.

Mark

Jim Hardin · Answer

@madodel wrote:
Thanks for the info. I'll look for some kind of documentation for the Sonic package that came installed on the Dimension. It was DLA I have used before on an IBM Thinkcentre and it wasn't particularly user friendly, but if I can set it up to just allow her to do a one step backup process that would be great. My experience with UDF and packet writing in the past was that it was slow, but it worked. and the ability to read and write to CDRW is builtin to the latest versions of OS/2 so it wasn't the PITA this has become. Also I never had a problem with reliability.

Mark

Universal Data Format (UDF) is a file system, not a writing method.

Packet Writing is the method used. OS/2 may have had a licensed packet writer included or it may have been on the software CD that came with the burner.

No one has ever had a problem with packet writing until it fails, then they are up that creek.

You will never see a post here about recovering from a Data CD that went bad. Plenty of posts about recovering packet writer CDs though…

Jim Hardin · Answer

@madodel wrote:
Thanks for the link, but my God this is horrible. According to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316415 XP doesn't support standard UDF packet writing. And the three options listed, install something that does, copy to disk and then drag it to the CDRW, save it to the CD Burning folder and then go through the idiotic step of clicking to write them to the CDRW.

Does the CD Burning software that comes with the Dell Demension 3000 (Sonic something or other I think) support direct writing to a drive? It's rediculous to have to do a two part process for this. I have had the ability to write directly to CDRW via UDF under OS/2 for years now.

Mark

The process is called Packet Writing and has never been known for reliability…

XP includes a Reader but no writer.

Sonic's packet writer is known as DLA. In order to Write the media must be formatted and the DLA program must exist on any PC you want to write with.

madodel · Answer

Thanks for the info. I'll look for some kind of documentation for the Sonic package that came installed on the Dimension. It was DLA I have used before on an IBM Thinkcentre and it wasn't particularly user friendly, but if I can set it up to just allow her to do a one step backup process that would be great. My experience with UDF and packet writing in the past was that it was slow, but it worked. and the ability to read and write to CDRW is builtin to the latest versions of OS/2 so it wasn't the PITA this has become. Also I never had a problem with reliability.

Mark

madodel · Answer

In OS/2 its just called UDFS, its an installable file system and doesn't require any 3rd party addon to write. Just install the IFS driver, format the CDRW and then write to the drive. I've been using it for several years now and haven't had any problems. Perhaps the large number of problems in these forums are because people here are using it under windows and maybe its a bad implementation.

Maybe its a bad idea, but this system was purchased in part to get the ability to write to CDRW, so I'd like to give it a reasonable try and have it setup to be as simple as possible. But I don't need a lesson in how it works, just some information on getting it to work on the Dell with the included software.

Mark

Storage, Drives & Media

Write to CDRW using UDF

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