Formatting your CD's

[Zapster]

I'm a bit new to the CDR game. I bought some CD-RW's last night and went to use one. It took me about 45 minutes to format it. Is this right? I don't remember having to format a CDR? Is it both or just the RW? Can you buy preformatted CDRW's?

Also, what the heck does the 12x or 10x mean when buying CD's. I tried a cheap one without any "X" marking and it took the same amount of time to record as a 12x. I'm using a 12x4x32 drive. Why pay more for a 12x disks when the cheap ones are the same? Is there a difference? If so, what?

 

[iamwiz82]

cdrw have to be formatted to be read in other drives. You can not format the cdrw and use it in yours. At least, mine is that way.

the speed on the cd is the fastest speed it can be burned without screwing it up.

1x is 150k/s
2x is 300k/s
10x is 1500k/s
etc

 

[razordog]

i believe the 12x or whatever on the cd you purchase means its been certified at that speed

so if you buy a cdr that is 8x certified, it means you can write on that cd at 8x speed but the manufacturer doesn't make any guarantees past that speed
i really don't think it means much because i write on cds that are 8x certified with my 10x speed writer and they work fine...