How do I format a CD-RW ?

Question

Havng written onto a CD-RW I now find that I cannot delete or change single files on that CD. All I can do is clear the whole CD. But I have seen somewhere on the web that single files can be changed or deleted if the CD is formatted.

Answer 1

You need a software like Roxio's Direct cd or something similar to do this.Nero too has it, but I dont recollect the name.
Once your cd-rw is formatted for Direct CD, it works like a floppy drive. You can add , modify or delete and even undelete files.You also get the Send to option when you right click on any file on your computer, to copy to the Direct cd without opening the writing window.
That is, upto the maximum capacity of the cd.What I mean is if you copy a file of 1 mb onto the cd. After you delete it though visually its not there, you will have 1mb less capacity on the disk.
Finally you will have to re-format the cd-rw.
Finally. Its not important that the disck has to be a cd-rw. It works fine with a cd-r. That is until you run out of disk space on the cd.
A cd-r cannot be re-formatted.

Answer 2

First I hope you are running XP (or Linux), secondly if you have a good burning programme such as Nero or Easy CD both of these will format a CD/RW. It is about the only time I would suggest Easy as it has a good drag and drop interface on your desktop and works out straight away wether you have a formatted disk or not.
Otherwise from "My Computer" you should be able to right click the disk and see "Format" and although Roxio (who produces Easy CD) wrote the software for Microsoft I never think it is that dependable.

Answer 3

I dont think once the CD-RW has been finalised that you can remove a single file from it.U would have to format the whole disc, hence losing all the information on it.

Answer 4

either right click on the cd rom drive icon and format or format through nero tools.

Answer 5

In nero, there is a option clear the CD, do that

Answer 6

I 've noticed that no one has answered your question yet. In order delete/add single files you would have to burn them at seperate "sessions" and uncheck the all at once prefrence in your software.

Answer 7

try using the help option in ur writing software

Answer 8

Use nero.

Answer 9

let ur pc do it for u