bjoernvold.com

I have been playing around with rescue tools and cloning etc (I will report if I can make any sense of it) but in the process I have used some DVD RW and I cannot erase them
Brasero has no option but there must be a program out there that does the job?
It is not recognized as a RW DVD it seems....

I have tried every command Google has to offer so I seriously suspect that the label on those Disk is wrong. They simply are not RW as it says, according to all the software in the world.
I cant remember where I bought them so I don't know who to kill either

I haven't used RW media in a long time but thought k3b had a blanking option.

Looking at wodim, maybe there is some difference between blanking a CD and a DVD. See the manual

wodim dev=/dev/sr1 -format

perhaps Of course, the proper device is needed.



Oh, that reminds me I don't remember so much blanking CD-RW before writing over it. Perhaps it's not needed.

Hmm looks like it is busy - I need to unmount it first...

Stay put.. unmounting and repeating:

And there you see why I suspect that the engraved RW on those disks is wrong. Although it does state Maybe that command does not handle DVD?
Going for the K3b approach...
And when I run that as root (not recommended) I get the interesting message that it cannot find growisofs which is essential in handling DVD's I think we are getting closer to something here....
So I try to install the dvd+rw-tools that k3b told me to

And the DVD RW is still not recognized as something that can be formated (or written to).....
I seem to remember that my old DVD -player was able to format these disks and record the movies on them when I transfered my VHS to DVD some time ago - so it should be possible somehow
Well time to check that out then going away from my PC and replace it with a DVD player and a remote control - and oh wonder it does in fact format the DVD.
So that is it.
My PC hardware is obviously not able to record or erase DVD's (but it is able to play them). I always forget that And the RW DVD's are re-writable.

Let this be a lesson to you

Still my laptop does indicate DVD and RW on the HW - and I did not manage it there either
The bizarre situation is that I can erase my movies and record new movies on those DVD's but I cannot format them with a computer!
Not with Windows and not with Linux - how very embarrassing.

Formatting is currently only
implemented for DVD+RW media.

-from the wodim manual/info page. Some years ago I was reading the words of a developer of one of these softwares and he said to stick with CD|DVD+RW, that -RW did not work as reliably. For all the years since, I have only been buying +RW media...

Ditto.