O..M..G..NEC is SICK!! 16X DVD-RAM coming soon!!

[Blazkowicz]

I want a device driver of some sort that can map A: to a floppy-sized partition on a DVDRAM disc... Lots of small boot apps that need floppys to work, but I don't have a floppydrive (and don't want to get one either).

lots of these "floppy apps" use MS-DOS (or rather FreeDOS or DR-DOS).
So for these things (ranish partition manager, Hitachi feature tool, BIOS flashing utilities) I boot on one of my FAT32 storage partitions (they all have MS-DOS 7.10 - DOS from windows 98SE)

If the app comes as a floppy disk image, I extract it.

If you don't have a FAT32 partition with DOS : you can get a FreeDOS boot disk with NTFS read support, I found such a 1.44MB boot disk in Nero's directory.. ready to be burned onto a CD-R

check this too : http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
this is what you're looking for. most useful "floppy apps" are already included and I think you can add your own.
it's not about rewriting a 1.44MB partition on a DVD-RAM each time you want to boot on another app, but having dozens of them on CD-R (or CD-RW) and booting the floppy images from the menu

 

[Saem]

A lot of people download TV shows, using non-RW just doesn't make sense for it, usually, people dl it, burn it and then pop it into their dvd player.

Not to mention, when I burn anything these days, tonnes of linux ISO being one of them, I use RW. I've saved so many discs by simply reburning and it works great, there is no reason for me to keep the older version around and not to mention shelf life isn't high, due to reburning the burn is usually fresher.

Also, whenever I download patches, apps and so on, I always keep them on my harddrive, but this is taking up a huge amoutn of space, so I simply burn them down and since version change fast, I just update it as needed. With DVD-RAM I wouldn't have to format it every time I want to change what's on the entire disk.

Then there is the fact that there are a lot of free learning materials online, books, papers and so on, these add up, so I burn them too, because my HDD could easily crash and I won't be able to back everything up.

Thats just a few of the scenarios.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Oh, if your DVDRAM can back up stuff you created hundreds of times over, why not just used CDRW? =p

DVDRAM seems to be much better for packet writing stuff. It's better as a replacement for recordable VHS (eg it can do timeshifting ie record and playback at the same time). This has been somewhat overcome by hard drives in PVRs, but it still has some fairly different qualities from DVD+/-R

 

[BRiT]

A lot of people download TV shows, using non-RW just doesn't make sense for it, usually, people dl it, burn it and then pop it into their dvd player.

More and more people are using networked dvd/media players. I've had my D2730 DVD/DIVX Player for over 2 years now. I'm seeing more and more of these-type of units being sold. Nearly every mfg makes one now. There's also ways to stream mpgs to ReplayTV units too.

Also for those who do d/l TV shows, they generally want to collect them all, so burning the entire set of episodes to DVD makes more sense. They will want to watch the episodes later and more than once. So using permanent media makes more sense.

 

[Saem]

Even if you want to collect it, using non-permanent media is better, because you can always update it, say if you get a better copy of something or don't want it anymore or want to avoid coasters. It's near impossible to coaster with an RW or RAM, because you can just rewrite.

 

[BRiT]

Even if you want to collect it, using non-permanent media is better, because you can always update it, say if you get a better copy of something or don't want it anymore or want to avoid coasters. It's near impossible to coaster with an RW or RAM, because you can just rewrite.

At $0.30 on the highside and $0.18 on the low per DVD-R 8x media, does it really matter? I think that's cheap enough that it's disposable. I'm sure others may think the same too. As for coastering, I've never had one with my NEC burner.

 

[Frank]

At $0.30 on the highside and $0.18 on the low per DVD-R 8x media, does it really matter? I think that's cheap enough that it's disposable. I'm sure others may think the same too. As for coastering, I've never had one with my NEC burner.

Unless most of the price you pay for blank media is taxes to refund lost intellectual property (ie. illegal copies). Like in most of the EU.

 

[Saem]

Yeah, way to help contain the swelling land filth problem. This is why I wish there were heavy levies on disposable items. At this rate, it'd be easier to dispose of certain individuals.

 

[Guden Oden]

Oh, if your DVDRAM can back up stuff you created hundreds of times over, why not just used CDRW? =p

Coz CRRW is old and sucky crap, and you can't access it like any rewriteable media; that's what makes DVDRAM so uber. Besides, built-in auto-verify of writes is awesome. I really like that feature.

 

[t0y]

It's also possible to boot from a flash drive. I have a 128mb one dual-booting with DSL (damn small linux) and some kind of rescue boot CD I downloaded off P2P with NTFS write support (I think some of the tools are included illegaly, though).

Too bad I had to go through a lot of trial and error to make it work properly, and most BIOSs don't have the adequate support. It sure helps when you need to reinstall a fresh windows without formating the partition...