Write CD-RW! Mt. Rainier and Drag n' Drop

I was having big time problems with InCD so I tried Write CD-RW! Short of full OS support of Mt. Rainier, this is the best there is. You can eject the disk using the button on the drive. There's no icon in the system tray. You just insert a blank CD-RW, then right click on the drive and select: format...; then you just drag and drop. I can't find anything wrong except it puts a small file on the disk when it's created that has the wrong time; the date/time is 16 hours or so before the file was created.

Pros:
Well integrated
Can eject the CD-RW with the drive button
Full Mt. Rainier and UDF support
Pro version with Read CD-MRW! lets any CD drive read the disk
Supports drag and drop
Uses a caching system so the drive is available almost immediately after formatting starts

Cons:
Too expensive for what it does. $49.95US for Write CD-RW!
Pro Version is $69.95

http://www.softarch.com

Dane

---

Last edited by Dane; 15-06-2002 at 20:57.

Dane,

Sounds interesting but I not too long ago purchased a Plextor 24/10/40A burner for 150.00 and it's not Mt. Rainier compatible. Not about to buy one that is. I'm wondering is it the firmware that makes it compatible or the burner itself? If it's only firmware perhaps Plextor will come out with a firmware upgrade.
I agree, both INCD and Direct CD suck, take too long and if not careful get errors. I learned never to eject the CD with the button, always use the software since it sometimes hasn't finished writting and by ejecting screws up the CD. This is for Direct CD only, with INCD you must use the software to eject.

I looked on the Plextor site but I couldn't find anything about Mt. Rainier. The older 24x10x40 TEAC 524E drive did not come with Mt. Rainier support but it was added with firmware revision 1.0D that was released a few days ago. I also looked at the firmware upgrade for the TEAC 516EB and it didn't mention adding Mt. Rainier. Because the TEAC 516EB didn't have it added, I would say it's something that has to be built into the hardware. Defect Management and the small 2k block size needed for Mt. Rainier probably aren't available in older drives. My guess would be that you will see a firmware upgrade that will enable Mt. Rainier on your drive.

Mt. Rainier is really about compatibility between different computers. Instead of using floppies or zip disks, students will be able to use a cd-rw and know that it will work at home and at school. I really don't need Mt. Rainier support; it's just that Write CD-RW! works substatially better than InCD. Now, about that price tag.


Dane
----------------
TEAC CD-W540E