Hi all… i’ve been trying to format/re-format a dvd-ram disc in OS11.2. can someone help me out? i tried using mkfs -t ext4 /dev/dvdrw… this works, the disc is erased and ext4 is created on the disc, however the disc is read only 
am i doing something wrong. secondly, once a disc has a label set, is there a way to rename that disc to anything
You mean re-writeable DVD?
Use k3b
No no… not dvd-rw or dvd+rw… dvd-ram. It’s a special kind of rewritable disc that supports packet-writing natively. I already tried it in k3b and brasero. it doesnt detect the disc as erasable/writable. the thing is that i can drag and drop things directly to the disc and the device starts burning to it but i really need to reformat this disc using ext3 or ext4 or fat32… anything will do but i dont know how to do it properly thanks for ur suggestion tho
No knowledge or experience with said/
sorry
try google
format dvd-ram in linux
One I found was:
How can I format a DVD RAM? - LinuxQuestions.org
HowTo DVDRAM [Archive] - Ubuntu Forums
It can be done in Ubuntu with various programs so it should be possible under any Linux.
Note however that most filesystems are unsuitable for DVD-RAM and UDF is preferred.
hey i just found out something… it appears that i was doing the right thing using mkfs, it worked when i used mkfs -t reiserfs -f -l label /dev/dvdrw
-f forces the disc to be erased, even though there is a filesystem on disc
-l sets the label to whatever u specify after
/dev/dvdrw is a device file to dvd drive(so writing to this file writes to the disc, but i only have one drive so i have no idea if it works like this when you have more than one burner)
the filesystem needs to be mounted as super user mode in order for write capabilities… i suspect it should work for ext3 and ext4, havent tried as yet
Tried using 1 in openSUSE 11.1. With UDF you can drag and drop to write without superuser right. Works great but DVD RAM is kinda slow. Mine is 1x - 2x write speed.
Hey by chance you know how to format dvd-ram with UDF? i dont think that mkfs can do that so i’m stumped, currently back 2 fat on my dvd-ram disc
Try using a non-journaled file system:
/root # mke2fs -b 2048 -F -L Backup /dev/dvdrw1
!! Never use options such as '-T largefile’ !!
/root # e2label /dev/dvdrw1 Backup_???
Modify /etc/fstab as follows (or similar):
/dev/dvdrw1 /media/DVDwriter auto noauto,user,rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/cdrw1 /media/DVDwriter auto noauto,user,rw,noatime 0 0
(The ‘noatime’ is important for long DVD-RAM life!! – there’s a block in the file-system which updates EACH time a file is accessed, and this needs to be suppressed on DVD-RAM systems.)
Mount (also as user) the DVD-RAM with:
~ > mount /dev/dvdrw1
Need to perform the following as root to give specific users write access to a directory on the DVD-RAM:
/root # mkdir <UserName>
/root # chown <UserName> <DirectoryName>
/root # chgrp <UserGroup> <DirectoryName>
I use this method to ‘rsync’ User Directories.