Cd-r Vs Cd-rw

slacker2 · Post by **slacker2** » Fri Aug 16, 2002 5:43 pm

TODAY I WAS ASKED BY A CO-WORKER ABOUT WHAT KIND OF CD WOULD BE BETTER TO USE WHEN THEY WENT ON TRAVEL. THEY ARE WORKING ON A PRESENTATION AND ARE GOING TO CONTINUE TO WORK ON IT. SO AFTER I THOUGHT ABOUT IT I WASN'T EXACTLY SURE HOW EACH FORMAT WORKS. I TOLD THEM WHAT I THINK IS THAT A CD-R WILL BE ABLE TO BE READ IN ANY CD ROM BUT THAT EVERYTIME YOU SAVE TO THE CD IT WILL MAKE A NEW AND UPDATED COPY OF THE PRESENTAION. IT WILL NOT OVERWRITE THE OLDER VERSION. IN THE CD-RW CASE IT WILL ACT LIKE A BIG FLOPPY DRIVE AND WILL ALLOW YOU TO COPY OVER THE EXISTING FILE. HOWEVER WITH CD-RW IT MUST BE FORMATTED WITH A GENERIC FILE STRUCTURE TO BE READ IN ALL CD ROMS. IF NOT THEN IT CAN ONLY BE READ IN THAT 1 PARTICULAR CD-RW DRIVE. SO AM I CORRECT IN MY EXPLAINATION AND IF NOT COULD SOMEONE PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME AS TO WHAT THE CORRECT ANSWER IS. HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE. THANKS SLACKER

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Sat Aug 17, 2002 3:45 am

CD-R allows you to write files to a disc, but they cannot be erased. The discs can be read in basically any CD-ROM drive, allowing distribution of files to most users.

CD-RW discs are written in the same way as CD-R, but can be erased. However, you will need either a multiread CD-ROM drive, a CD-RW drive, or Windows 2000/XP in order to read the discs. Also, Adaptec released a program a while ago called UDFReader that allowed Windows 98 to read these discs in any CD-ROM drive. CD-RW discs can also be written to and erased in a similar fashion to a floppy disc if formatted to do so. Adaptec's DirectCD is the application you'd need for this.

If your co-worker is using the disc only on one PC, then CD-RW would be the best choice. Otherwise, go with CD-R as they can be read in any computer. The discs are also extremely cheap so writing multiple copies isn't very expensive at all.

slacker2 · Post by **slacker2** » Sat Aug 17, 2002 2:37 pm

Let me see if I understand. So then what you are saying is that if he has a file saved to a CD-R and he opens it up. He modifies that particular file then when he saves it to the CD-R again it will not re-write/replace that file, instead it will put a new updated version of the file on the CD-R. SO that in the end there will be 2 versions of the file on that CD-R.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Sat Aug 17, 2002 3:33 pm

Originally posted by slacker2
Let me see if I understand. So then what you are saying is that if he has a file saved to a CD-R and he opens it up. He modifies that particular file then when he saves it to the CD-R again it will not re-write/replace that file, instead it will put a new updated version of the file on the CD-R. SO that in the end there will be 2 versions of the file on that CD-R.

That's right.