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visvaldis

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 9, 2008
63
3
I have Mac G4, MDD, with recently installed super drive.
I never had a problem burning CD-Rs. Lately, I burned a CD-RW with some Word Perfect documents. I made minor changes on the original document on my desktop and wanted to put the new version on the CD-RW. I opened the CD-RW icon and tried to trash the first document. The prompt said something like: Sorry, can't do. Error code 61.
The CD-RW cannot be modified.
On the internet I found only ways to do this with Windows, but nothing for a Mac.
I'd rather re-burn CD-RWs than throw away the CD-Rs after every minor change.
What an I doing wrong?
 
I have Mac G4, MDD, with recently installed super drive.
I never had a problem burning CD-Rs. Lately, I burned a CD-RW with some Word Perfect documents. I made minor changes on the original document on my desktop and wanted to put the new version on the CD-RW. I opened the CD-RW icon and tried to trash the first document. The prompt said something like: Sorry, can't do. Error code 61.
The CD-RW cannot be modified.
On the internet I found only ways to do this with Windows, but nothing for a Mac.
I'd rather re-burn CD-RWs than throw away the CD-Rs after every minor change.
What an I doing wrong?

On our G5 iMac, we could only rewrite to a CD-RW by overwriting or deleting the previous contents. It would not add to the contents already on the disc.

Yes, frustrating, I know. Especially since at the time it was easy to add data without losing anything if using our Win 2000 PC.

What I'd suggest is that you copy the data off the CD-RW onto your Desktop, then burn it back on with the new content you wanted to add. I hope that will help.
 
One thing: different burners like or dislike different brand/type disks. That could be an issue.

Another thing: Not that what you're doing is wrong, but I'd recommend using USB keys to save your documents. Rewritable disks have an even shorter shelf life than regular writable ones.

Last thing: Are you really using "WordPerfect" in OS9 or Classic? That's what they call "abandonware" and I hope you're saving copies of all your documents in a more generic format.
 
You need to go into Disk Utility and 'Erase' the disk. CDRWs require a complete erase or multisession format in order to update information. In your case, a complete erase is the best solution.

Erasing the disk will take approximately as long as writing an entire 700MB disk, which is why Braughn is suggesting that you just get a flash drive. Much better choice.
 
I recommend using an usb drive or cloud based like dropbox since you are constantly changed docs
 
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