Question on DVD burning

Acronis 8.0 will not recognnize my Plextor PX712A as a DVDR/RW drive, instead seeing it as a CDRW drive. Perplexed by this I did a search on this forum and found the reply quoted below. As I read it it seams to imply that if you have UDF packet writting software installed, then Acronis will be able to write directly to the drive. I have InCD4 (4.3.11.1) installed, but Acronis still insists that my drive is a CDRW. I'm not quite shure that I understand the requirement for a formatted disk when using a DVD-R. InCD allows me to formmat rewriteable media (-RW, +RW), but not recordable media (-R, +R). I have also tried to record directly to DVD+RW media, after formating, but Acronis still insists that the drive is a CDRW. I guess I can always make an image to my HD and the copy it using Nero, but this seems to be kinda of a round about way of doing things. Given that I have InCD4 installed should I be able to record directly from Acronis to the Plextor drive or do I need to record the image to the HD and then to the Plextor?

 

Don't worry about this. It's annoying, but all DVD writers are shown as CDRW drives. When you have a formatted DVD+RW or DVD-RW disk, you will be able to write 4GB to it.

Simple answer: InCD won't format a DVD-R or DVD+R disk. It only formats the RW disks.

No sweat, did you see that TI wrote files of up to 2.0GB to the formatted DVD+RW disk? If your backup file is more than 4GB, TI writes two 2.0GB files and one 0.3GB file if that will complete the backup. Otherwise, TI will prompt you for a second formatted DVD+RW disk to continue writing the backup. The maximum file size for packet writing with InCD is 2.0GB which is why there are two files rather than one larger one.

OK, now let us know how your backup worked with the formatted DVD+RW disks. Be sure to run the Check Image and confirm that the image is good.

If you want to, you can write the image to another partition on your hard drive or to another hard drive, split it at 2.0GB and then burn it to DVD-R or DVD+R (or RW) disks later. Some people prefer that because it allows them to keep a copy of the image on a hard drive for quick access.

 

I take it from your reply then that the only way to write to DVD-R (or +R) is to first burn the image to HD using Acronis, and then burn an image of that hd to the DVD-R using Nero. This is the method I finally used with one modification. I split the image into a 4GB and a 2GB file, and then burned them to the DVD-R media using the same size. I did rececieve a warning that anything over 2 GB could only be read in WinXP. This didn't seem to be and issue at first as I'm running XP, but on further reflrction if I boot from the rescue disk I'll likely be in a DOS enviornment and wont be able to read these disks. Do I need to redo them at the 2 GB max size.

As to using DVD-RW (in my case DVD+R), even after formatting I am unable to use them from within Acronis. I keep getting a bad media warning. This is with Maxell media that Nero uses without complaint. I tried other media, Verbatim, and even an other drive, a Sony, but all failed when trying to write from Acronis.

 

I've also got the same hardware (Plextor SX712a) and tend to use the spare partition created on the HDD to create TI mirror files. If I want them on DVD then I burn them from there as a single file. I believe my backup is already a size in excess of 2Gb and having burned a copy manually to DVD I verified it would restore from a pre-Windows environment using the Acronis boot disk I made and I seem to remember it worked.

IMHO Acronis have mis-described the product by implying it would burn DVD back up images. I've never managed to get it done by any method other than manually doing the job and I've got all the right software and even tried to make the Plextor into a USB mass storage device - but that failed as well.

I am considering going back to Drive Image or using Ghost, the True Image claims are false and are very dissappointing.

 

I agree, I also feel that Acronis wasn't very clear about what they really ment by backing up to DVD. Its a shame as its a nice program otherwise. Its kind of ironic as I chose Acronis over Symantec, because of Symantecs habit of mis-discribing products. I think I'll stick with Acronis, hopefully they will address the issue soon, as it does seem to be a rather severe short comming of the program.

Qdos - just so I have this strait in my head. Are you saving the image to a seperate HD as a single file, and then using your burring software to span it across the DVD's. How big are the files on the DVD ( < 4GB or < 2GB)

 

Yup, I make an image of partition "C" and writing that image to partition "D" without any problem. My images are circa 2.5Gb to 3.0Gb.

After creating the image I will then burn it to DVD using Nero. I have already successfully tested that I can restore my PC from disaster by first running the Acronis Boot Disk and then the DVD containing my actual drive image file to make my "C" partition bootable after it's been corrupted.

What naffs me off are Acronis' emptyhanded claims of direct image writing capability to DVD media - it cannot be done, I've tried it according to the procedures Acronis recommend and by improvisation - it does not work!

Guess I'm lucky that where I get my software it comes for next to nothing, because if I'd actually paid a higher sum then I'd be more than a little mad regards the product...

 

Something odd here. Others using Nero InCD to format DVD+/_RW disks have reported no problem with TI writing to the disks.

I use Roxio Easy CD-DVD Creator 6 with Drag-to-Disc format DVD+RW and also DVD+R disks (formatting DVD+R is unique to Roxio as far as I know). TI writes to these without a problem. I have a Memorex 4X DVD writer and use Memorex DVDs.

So, it can be done.

 

With all the talk about software, it's easy to forget about the hardware and the media. The quality is getting better all the time, but it's all relative.

I think that the write speed and the buffer, if there is one, will greatly influence how reliably you can write directly to DVD from a program that is generating the data on the fly. If you write it to files on the drive first, there is no problem in transferring the data because that drive can read as fast as the program can write. If you then copy the files to DVD, it's a much more stable environment and you have plenty of control and an opportunity to verify before copying.

Drag-to-disk is exactly that: you just drag a file to the icon and it will be copied with no need for the destination media to be pre-formatted, and you can just keep adding files until you run out of space, but I don't know whether you can use unformatted media if you write directly from TI with Drag-to-disk in place or not.