Re-using DVD+RW ... how many times?

I have some Verbatim DVD+RW discs which I use for transferring TV recordings from my Mac to our DVD player, to watch on the telly in our living room.

I'm beginning to find the drive in my Mac doesn't want to recognise some of the discs, or recognises them after a lot of chunnering. Thing is, they have only been erased and re-used maybe 3 or 4 times at most. Is this what I should expect from this type of media, or is something more serious amiss?

I read somewhere that they could be written to upto one thousand times.

[boroboi]

Try fully formatting them instead of a quick format which just deletes the ToC

[Graham M]

As long as the discs aren't getting scratched or dirty then they should be re-writable hundreds, if not thousands of times

Originally Posted by boroboi

Try fully formatting them instead of a quick format which just deletes the ToC

Yep - giving that a go now on one of the discs that just barely loaded up ... presumably the idea is to do this before the discs get to a state where the machine won't recognise them at all!

I'll be able to report back in a few minutes whether the full format makes it easier for the Mac to load up the fully-erased disc.

---------- Post added at 16:06 ---------- Previous post was at 15:55 ----------

The disc I completely erased will now not work at all. I'm becoming concerned for the health of my iMac's built-in Superdrive. What's the best piece of kit to try to clean one of these, before I have to start thinking about repairing or replacing the drive?

[boroboi]

That's an odd occurance :S

I'm not sure how you clean the laser inside a drive...

We used to clean old well used CDROM lasers with a bit of spittle and a cotton bud on the laser eye.
Worth a go.
But in my experience with DVDRW+, it can always be a bit hit and miss.
Have you tried burning the disc at a low a speed as possible?

I Found RW- to be better, but I agree the full format should really have done the trick.
I did eventually give up though and bought a DivX player and used a USB key.
Now just the Xbox does everything.

Originally Posted by kryogenik

We used to clean old well used CDROM lasers with a bit of spittle and a cotton bud on the laser eye.
Worth a go.
But in my experience with DVDRW+, it can always be a bit hit and miss.
Have you tried burning the disc at a low a speed as possible?

I Found RW- to be better, but I agree the full format should really have done the trick.
I did eventually give up though and bought a DivX player and used a USB key.
Now just the Xbox does everything.

The iMac's superdrive is completely internal and slot-loading. You can't get at the laser. If cleaning it is likely to help, then I need some sort of cleaning implement. I have a CD player cleaner; it's a disc with plastic brushes glued to it. But I want to be sure I'm not doing more harm than good by putting it inside my iMac.

The problem I am having is with both burned and unburned DVD+RWs not being recognised, and being spat out after about 15 seconds of the iMac trying to mount them. I have managed to produce some DVD-Rs without any issues though.

Ah, I see. Is there perhaps a firmware update for the drive Chris?

I'd say if the brushes are soft enough, they'll be fine - but if your -RW's are ok, then doesn't look like there a problem with that to be honest. With it being slot, it's likely it's kept pretty sanitary (to a point).

If there are any updates, Software Update always catches them within 7 days, it's set to check automatically ... so no, I don't think there are, and there certainly haven't been any recently.

Oddly enough I've just tried another disc off the same spindle - has been used maybe 2 or 3 times - and it loaded up immediately. I'm now doing a full erase on it, and we'll see whether the drive likes it as much after that. If it's still ok then, I'll burn something on it, erase and burn again ...

I'm wondering if this might just be a dodgy batch of DVD+RWs?

Could easily be, yeah.

I am talking about firmware updates for the specific drive Chris though - not OS or software updates.
Some manufacturers release updated firmware for their drives to handle incompatibilties with formats and even brands. Might be worth a Google on the relevant forums anyway. Good luck with it.

I got the difference mate Apple normally releases firmware updates through software update as well.

Ah, I see.
/me Mac ignorant

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by boroboi

That's an odd occurance :S

I'm not sure how you clean the laser inside a drive...

You don't clean the laser, you clean the lens used to focus it.

[boroboi]

Aye i just refer to it as the laser thats all