Hi,
i'm using a dvd+-rw device for archiving my vdr-recordings.
you don't need to by cdrecord-DVDpro, there is a tool called
growisofs out there.
It handles dvd+ and dvd- correct, it is free, and AFAIK
it handles the various versions of buffer-underrunprotection
automagically.
Christoph

Gene Heskett schrieb:

On Wednesday 23 June 2004 14:30, Frank Smith wrote:

--On Wednesday, June 23, 2004 13:56:27 -0400 Gene Heskett

<gene.heskett AT verizon DOT net> wrote:

Greetings all;

I'm back from a week out in Nebraska, getting a son married off. I hope that you didn't get too many bounces as my mailbox was full

when I got X running again, which had died due to my changing the
default prompt in bash, which in turn screwed up the X startup, it
would get to the mouse intialization, report success in the log,
but hang at that point with no further disk activity.

Anyway, on arrival here, it appears my 2nd tape drive in as many
months is in the process of dying.

I recently bought a DVD+-RW, drive and a 25 pack of +- media.

While its burnt several cdr's just fine, the media I have appear
to not be compatible with cdrecord unless I buy the
cdrecord-DVDPro version from Jeorg.  I probably can, the $ is not
a huge problem.

What I'd like from this group is some pointers on setting up the
use of this dvd drive as a 4.7GB tape equivalent.  I'd be glad to
be somebodies "guinea pig" :-)

Be sure to verify what you burn.  My experience in burning data DVDs
is limited to a set of 26 DVDs I made to move 120+GB of data between
locations (a high latency high bandwith data transfer). Of the 26
discs, 22 were read just fine, the other 4 had read errors on parts
of the discs.  If I skipped  over the file(s) involved I could read
the remainder of the disc, but each one of those bad discs had 10s
of MBs of unrecoverable data,  Fortunately I was able to rsync from
the original server to complete the data transfer, but that
wouldn't have been possible if I had needed to do a recover from
those DVDs. I don't know if it was bad media or a buffer underrun
while burning, but the original burns completed without any
indication of problems (xcdroast with cdrecord).  YMMV, but I would

be sure to do extensive testing before relying on it for backups. With video, minor data loss just results in barely noticable

dropped frames or nois, but with data it can be catastophic. I
would suggest running amverify on every run, at least until you
build some confidence in your burning.

My $.02,
Frank

Thanks Frank. I've now made 2 dvd's from unwritten dirs in the /dumps assign, using a recent k3b (11-11), but I've not figured out how to turn on the burnproof yet, and the burn screen isn't showing me buffer status, like there isn't any, and the drive claims to have a 2Mb buffer.

--
Cheers, Gene
There are 4 boxes to be used in defense of liberty.  Soap, ballot,
jury, and ammo.
Please use in that order, starting now.  -Ed Howdershelt, Author
Additions to this message made by Gene Heskett are Copyright 2004,
Maurice E. Heskett,
all rights
reserved.