multi-session CDs and DVDs

2011-01-29 22:03:32

I am attempting to acclimate to Win 7, and to make it do what I want. I purchased a 6 year old computer, cheap, and installed 64 bit Win 7 Home Premium on it. Most things seem satisfactory, if a little awkward, but my budget is very limited and I hope to utilize mostly either the application software I already have or new freeware.

My new need is writing DVDs. I’m only interested in data backup, such as backing up my LP transfer projects, although I also still want to be able to append data sessions to the music CDs I write.. It will be a rare occasion when I want to use the entire disk at one time.

I’ve been writing multi-session CDs for years. I want to switch to mainly DVDs because of the greater capacity, leading to fewer disks requiring less physical space.

The freeware I’ve tried so far (e.g. Burnaware) can only write last-session-available multi-session disks, either on CD or DVD. That means that earlier sessions disappear when another is added, and are not accessible. The program itself, in its disk information window, displays the fact of previous sessions, but that is of little value.

I suspect some specialized data recovery programs can get at the earlier sessions, but that is very inconvenient. I need the disks to work properly in Windows Explorer and to be easily utilized on any other computer.

I recall when I started with CDs that only the commercial products, Nero and Roxie, could write such multi-session CDs. None of the freeware or shareware programs, as far as I could ascertain, were able. Is that still the case? What is the magic involved in such writing? Is it patented so other programs can’t use it?

multi-session CDs and DVDs

Reply #1 – 2011-01-30 02:01:00

I was under the impression that Win 7 does that natively now, probably since Vista. Have you tried that? When you insert a blank disc, if you haven't disabled autorun, it should ask if you want to burn it once or keep it open (not in those exact words, but you'll know).

I myself never found much value in it. When I tried it years ago and it seemed like a good idea (CD-R still was a bit expensive IIRC) I got corruption problems and incompatibility, so I thought it wasn't worth the trouble. Aren't DVD-R cheap enough nowadays though that you can just burn all in once session? Also, IIRC every session wasted non-negligible disk space.

multi-session CDs and DVDs

Reply #2 – 2011-01-30 02:54:14

I’ve been creating multi-session disks on CD-R for at least nine years. These happen to contain data I want to keep long term. They add up to a lot of physical disk storage space that is hard to find around here. This would obviously be several times+ worse if I did not do multi-session. That is my main reason to switch to DVD. One DVD has the capacity of more than six CDs.

Yes, there is between-session overhead, about 20 meg on CD-R. I’ve no idea what it is on DVD-R but having that much “wasted” space is a lot better than haveing several hundred meg of a CD-R wasted because the disk was finalized when only half full.

Multi-session CDs have presented no reliability problems. I’ve used more expensive, good quality media for backup. Some CDs on cheaper media, not intended for long term storage, have deteriorated badly in a year or so. Also, according to my tests with KProbe2, those cheap media disks have a great many more read errors to begin with, even though they’ve all play ok.

This afternoon I located two freeware programs that do multi-session CDs and DVDs in the correct way (from my viewpoint) : CDBurnerXP and InfarRecorder. MagicISO is a fairly inexpensive program that claims to do the same.

I’ve tested CDBurnerXP with a number of disks. It does do the job but my success has not been complete. A number of times it wrote a new session that eliminated the previous sessions. I’m hoping this was some mistake of mine but obviously I need to test more to be certain I can get consistent results.  It looks like, at the very least, I have to close the program between sessions in order for the process to work correctly on succeeding sessions but that will be normal anyway since different sessions come days, weeks, or months apart, unlike some of my tests.

I was also not able to get the program to write audio CDs without finalizing the disk, preventing future sessions. The option was there but did not work. I can, however, write the audio session with Burrn, then add the data sessions with this program.

I don’t want to be unfair to InfarRecorder based on rumor, but I looked briefly into its associated forum and found many threads complaining that it didn’t do multi-session correctly. If CDBurnerXP works out well, I probably won’t have the energy to test the other program.

As far as Window 7 itself, I don’t know and probably won’t find out unless I can’t get something else to work. I generally avoid MS applications as a matter of principal, based on previous experience. I suppose that attitude could be considered kind-of redneck, and it is nice to know I might have the option if necessary. Anyway, turning off auto-play for every possible circumstance was one of my first post install actions. It isn’t limited to MS stuff, I tend to strongly dislike anything automatic that I haven’t explicitly set up to be that way.

multi-session CDs and DVDs

Reply #3 – 2011-01-30 04:24:06

Yeah, I've always considered autorun/autoplay to be Windows' biggest security risk for the casual user with CDs and DVDs coming with trojan crapware on them. For the life of me I don't know how they still ship Windows with it enabled, though I'm not sure if Vista/7 let you know if a program was about to run. I remember XP didn't.

multi-session CDs and DVDs

Reply #4 – 2011-01-30 05:18:49

Windows 7 natively supports multisession disk burns:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows...indows-Explorer

Autorun in vista/7 doesn't actually run anything, so much as prompt the user with what the disk would like to do and they get the option of running it.  Not the biggest security risk in the world, especially considering that the attacker would need to actually give you a physical copy of the malware.  Furthermore, there are sometimes cases where using a deliberately faulty filesystem can execute arbitrary code just by mounting the device to your file system. (this attack has been done on all major OS').

multi-session CDs and DVDs

Reply #5 – 2011-01-30 07:58:05

Just wondering - is UDF formatted DVD-RAM an option?

multi-session CDs and DVDs

Reply #6 – 2011-01-30 09:07:02

What about ImgBurn?

multi-session CDs and DVDs

Reply #7 – 2011-01-30 18:49:36

For multisession i'd recommend Romeo Burner Lite. Leaving aside its unfortunate name, it's a small, very simple (which ofc can be a bad thing too), well-made program. Works with drag&drop.


Regrettably the best IMO burning app IMGburn doesn't do multisession
http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtop...ost&p=39535