|
Posted by GG Willikers on June 16, 2008, 5:45 am
Please log in for more thread options M.I.5¾ wrote:
>> I have aquired a new laptop recently and have come up against a weird
>> problem.
>>
>> The laptop (HP DV6000) is equipped with an optical drive that is supposed
>> to read and write DVD-RAM discs. I have a few of these so I decided to
>> use one to store my digital photos on. However when I try, I get an error
>> message that the disc is write protected. If I try to reformat the disc,
>> I get a similar message telling me the disc is write protected.
>>
>> What gives? How do I remove the write protection from the disc?
>
> The one thing you haven't mentioned is the operating system, and your cross
> posting to the windows XP hardware group has probably thrown a few people.
> You are using Windows Vista.
>
> Welcome to the world of Digital Rights Management (DRM) described as a 'best
> selling product that nobody wants'.
>
> The disc you are trying to write to was most probably formatted to FAT32 on
> a PC other than the one you are trying to use it on, and not running Vista.
> Most current DVD-RAM discs have provision for the CPRM (Copy Protection for
> Recordable Media) DRM built in. Windows Vista has taken advantage of this
> and supports it. Since your disc was formatted on another system, Vista
> enforces DRM by disallowing the writing of any files which are recognised
> media files (though the error message does not exactly give this away). If
> you experiment, you will find that you can create folders and you can write
> files such as .DOC, .XLS or any other non media files. But you can't write,
> .WAV, .MP3, .JPG or any other recognised media file. I don't know what
> happens if you change the extension, write the file and then change it
> back - though this is hardly convenient if you are writing (say) 500 files.
>
> As you have discovered, Vista won't allow a reformat of the disc in FAT32.
> The workaround here is to reformat the disc in something like UDF 2.01,
> which is the Vista default (If you insert a blank disk, Vista will helpfully
> auto format it in UDF 2.01). If you really want FAT32, you should then be
> able to reformat it back to FAT32. But be aware, this particular FAT32 is
> not quite the same as the FAT32 from previous Windows versions as it
> embraces the CPRM technology on the disc. You will now be able to write
> your media files to the disc (unless they are tagged with CPRM data that
> prohibits this). You can read the disc on previous systems, but writing
> media files will be painfully slow and may well cause the disc to refuse to
> accept media files under Vista again. Of course UDF 2.01 is not compatible
> with any previous Windows incarnation.
>
> You should be aware that Vista is a bit finicky with DVD-RAM formats, and it
> can often happen that it refuses to reformat a FAT32 disc into any format
> (the error messages are either that the disc is write protected, or that the
> disc is in use or just a an error that the format failed to complete).
>
> Basically, Microsoft have implimented DRM and totally inconvenienced those
> that wish to use the optical drive for what it was intended.
>
>
>
Thanks for that. Yet another reason to skip the new improved Winders.
| 
XML Sitemap