CD-RW or the Compact Disk Rewritable is one type of compact disk that allows multiple erase and write options, in addition to numerous reads. CD- RW is the successor to CD- MO and CD- R or the CD- WORM (Write Once, Read Many). CD- RW is Orange Book III, where the CD- MO is Orange Book I and CD- R, Orange Book II. The best advantage of the CD- RW is you can write data after erasing the currently stored data and also perform multi-sessions. Although CD- R’s supports multi-sessions but never supports erasing to write data again. CD-RW discs are capable of storing 74 minutes (650) MB of data, some discs support up to 80 minutes (700) MB of data. Once too expensive, but the CD-RW are available in a matching price to CD- R’s.
Reformatting CD-RW in Windows
Reformatting CD- RW is very simple. First insert the CD- RW in your computer then click Start, launch My Computer and then right-click the CD recording drive listed. Click Open. Your Windows Operating System will display a temporary storage area where files are held before they are copied to the CD.Now yoou can click the Erase this CD-RW option, which you can find under the CD Writing Tasks section. This will launch the CD Writing Wizard, follow the instructions to reformat the disk.
Reformatting CD in Mac
To start reformatting CD- RW in your Mac, insert the CD-RW to your optical drive and click the Finder, located in the Toolbar. Now select Applications from the Finder menu. and double click the Disk Utility within the applications menu to launch it. Click on the Erase option provided and highlight the CD-RW disk in the Disk Utility menu. Finally click on the Erase button by the Erase tab to initiate the reformatting. Wait till the process is completed and you have reformatted your CD- RW.