I have two CD/RW (Phillips) discs that have files on them. I can open the files and play them (video and audio files) in W7/32 and Ubuntu 11. I want to erase/format the discs, however they are write protected. I have tried windows format (does not work), tried command prompt as administrator/ format and it started then came back with a message to make the disc invalid, I replied yes. However the format failed. Also tried changing 'read only' to 'archive' in the properties for the disc (access denied). Tried burning to the disc in Ubuntu, selecting blank disc as OK, but that failed too. I am stumped. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
That's weird. Anyway, if you have sun where you live, you can put the CD with the writable surface towards the sun and leave it there for say 2 hours. If you don't have sun, take it to a solarium. UV is your friend. That's the "natural" way of deleting a RW disc. After that, you may try a full erase with your burner. But it could be that simply your disc has had its lifetime passed...
That is even weirder! Amazing. I am going to try it. P.S. tried the discs on 3 different systems, same results.
I think the sun method is a good way to warp the poly layers of the disk making it totally unusable. Even if heat from the sun is not a problem, the sun can cause "clouding" or "coloring" of the polycarbonate coatings making reading and burning that much more difficult, if not impossible. The phase-changing film used in CD-RW, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW discs is not light sensitive. However, the metallic reflective layers within the disk are sensitive to heat and IR (infrared) light which is NOT blocked by glass. When exposed to IR, these layers will absorb heat from the IR and promote warping and degradation of the organic dye or phase-changing film that holds the data, and/or the protective layers of poly. It is important to note degradation does not simply mean the data is lost, but rather the capability to record new data is greatly compromised, or destroyed altogether. Rewritable disks have a limited number of write/burn cycles from the start - extended exposure to light limits it further, if not completely. In effect, putting years of age on the disk in a matter of hours, or even minutes. Sunlight destroys the disk (accelerates aging), not just the data. Additionally, different disks use different materials and formulas for the dye/phase-changing layers (depending on type, brand and quality of the blanks) and these different materials behave differently when exposed to outside influences, including sunlight. This means disk A from Brand Z may not react they same way or to the same extent from the same influences as disk A from Brand Y. So my advice is to keep all optical disks out of the sun unless you want to destroy the disk, If you have a disk that is unreadable, turn it into a coaster and use a new blank. Blanks are cheap after all - why risk your data with one that has been compromised? http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec5.html http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.05/docs/CDandDVDCareandHandlingGuide.pdf
Well, i haven't done it before, but i 've read it in fora for years. At this point you 've nothing to lose. Example: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/43571-14-cant-delete#t63323 http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=858243
