DVD-RAM format problem...

[jiclark]

I have a dual 500MHz G4 with built-in DVD-RAM drive. I haven't written anything to a disc for a while, but today when I went to create an archive, I put in the disk and it comes up as "PANA-UDF" (it's a Panasonic LM-HB47U) and is uneditable. I can't seem to format it in Disk Utility (oh yeah, I'm in OS X), and I haven't had this problem before. I checked, and the write-protect thingy is in the correct position to be writable. I don't think I've ever seen a DVD-RAM disk come up in UDF format before... Do I need some other utility to be able to format it as Mac OS extended?. This is a single sided 4.7Gig disk, and I've used another just like it without problems... I just tried a double-sided 9.4Gig disk, and it needed to be formatted, but Disk Utility was able to do it (it didn't even mount at first, got that "this disk is unreadable by Mac OS... do you want to initialize it?" message).

Can anyone help me???

TIA,
John

[blb]

I've found that OS X has support to read UDF, but nothing further. For my DVD-RAM discs, the best way to deal with them I've seen is to use OS9 to format them as HFS+. This makes them writable in OS X, and it seems HFS+ is also faster for reading than UDF, at least in OS X.

[jiclark]

Thanks blb!!

That's exactly what I was looking for... Now my question is, why does Drive Setup under OS 9.x do it easily, but Disk Utility under OS X doesn't??? Yet another place for a much-needed update, eh?

Thanks again,
John

[blb]

Definitely something to watch for in future updates; it sure is annoying to have to boot into 9 just to reformat a disc so you can use it easily.

I did send feedback on this months ago to Apple, so hopefully someone has it on a list somewhere, if it wasn't already.

[spaex]

Thanks blb!!

That's exactly what I was looking for... Now my question is, why does Drive Setup under OS 9.x do it easily, but Disk Utility under OS X doesn't??? Yet another place for a much-needed update, eh?

Thanks again,
John
Sorry, maybe someone can help me.. :-( I'm having the same problem with that Pana-UDF stuff in OS X... now I red here that In OS 9, I can format the DVD-RAM to make it writable in OS X, but can anyone tell me how I format the disk in OS 9?? I always used the Disk utility in OS X.. and have no idea what "Program" could help in OS 9.
Any suggestions and hints are very welcome! :-) you write something of a "Drive setup", where do I find this?

Thanx a lot in advance!!
spaex

[Las_Vegas]

…you write something of a "Drive setup", where do I find this?

/Applications (Mac OS 9)/Utilities/Drive Setup

[spaex]

Thanx!
I found it, but it does not show my DVD-RAM drive (external/Firewire) :-(
any idea? :-)

[mac_man_luke]

Have you tried toast?

[Las_Vegas]

Did you boot into 9, or does it not show the drive from Classic mode?

[spaex]

I did boot the mac in OS9, but there it does not show my DVD-Burner as a volume to select in the drive setup...

[chipsteruk]

can someone help me

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=29950

thanx

[yellow]

I did boot the mac in OS9, but there it does not show my DVD-Burner as a volume to select in the drive setup...

You have to have OS9 drivers in order for the external drive to show up. Those you will have to get from the drive's vendor, assuming they even have any.