CD-RW as a reusable storage device

I would like to know how a CD-RW can be used like a floppy where you can save a file to it, take it to any computer that has a floppy drive make changes to the file and then resave the file? Can this be done with a CD-RW?

Note: we are using many different burners with different software.

 

lol - Its just a matter of updating it with the burning program you use each time. instant Cd will allow you to drop items onto the CD like you would a floppy disc.

 

Let me be more specific in my explanation of our problem.

We understand CD-Rs and CD-RWs allow users to burn new items onto the disk.

What we are trying to do is edit existing files.

The way we understand CD-RW is that you can save files to them and delete them but you can not edit them. I used the floppy as an example because this does all it to happen.

The problem we're facing is that when we open a file form the CD-RW we can not save the open file we made changes to back onto the CD-RW it says that it is a Read only file.

So our question to you all is how do you fix this?

 

Ill tell you how a floppy disc works.

The computer program passes an instruction to the computer hardware to write a data file on a floppy disk, which is very similar to a single platter in a hard disk drive except that it is spinning much slower, with far less capacity and slower access time.
The computer hardware and the floppy-disk-drive controller start the motor in the diskette drive to spin the floppy disk. The disk has many concentric tracks on each side. Each track is divided into smaller segments called sectors, like slices of a pie.
A second motor, called a stepper motor, rotates a worm-gear shaft (a miniature version of the worm gear in a bench-top vise) in minute increments that match the spacing between tracks.
The time it takes to get to the correct track is called "access time." This stepping action (partial revolutions) of the stepper motor moves the read/write heads like the jaws of a bench-top vise. The floppy-disk-drive electronics know how may steps the motor has to turn to move the read/write heads to the correct track.
The read/write heads stop at the track. The read head checks the prewritten address on the formatted diskette to be sure it is using the correct side of the diskette and is at the proper track. This operation is very similar to the way a record player automatically goes to a certain groove on a vinyl record.
Before the data from the program is written to the diskette, an erase coil (on the same read/write head assembly) is energized to "clear" a wide, "clean slate" sector prior to writing the sector data with the write head. The erased sector is wider than the written sector -- this way, no signals from sectors in adjacent tracks will interfere with the sector in the track being written.
The energized write head puts data on the diskette by magnetizing minute, iron, bar-magnet particles embedded in the diskette surface, very similar to the technology used in the mag stripe on the back of a credit card. The magnetized particles have their north and south poles oriented in such a way that their pattern may be detected and read on a subsequent read operation.
The diskette stops spinning. The floppy disk drive waits for the next command.

[bold]However, thats boring, is this what you want?[/bold]
CD-RW media was invented to replace the floppy as file sizes grew larger. However existing CD software is mainly for mastering audio CDs and does not reproduce the simple drag and drop convenience and usability of a floppy. However, WriteCD-RW! does and also enables disk interchange between PCs and Macs.
WriteCD-RW! V3.5 TM - enables your CD-RW drive to work like a giant floppy drive! It is also the first software in the world that unlocks the power and ease of use of the new Mt. Rainier CD-RW drives and while continuing to provide "drag and drop" capability for non-Mt. Rainier CD-RW drive. Others make this claim, but SAI with its integrated file system and driver technology delivers.

ReadCD-MRW!TMreads Mt. Rainier formatted disks on standard CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives. These Mt. Rainier formatted CD-RW disks are not readable in legacy, non-Mt. Rainier drives. With ReadCD-MRW, the disc is automatically recognized and the data files are readable in Windows Explorer.

 

Hum...

This "like a floppy" sentence is quite misleading imho.

You can achieve such functionality by using a packet writing software. Such available are Ahead InCD, Roxio DirectCD and many others. Newer ones have the Mt.Rainier support, but you can also use the UDF format which has freeware reader applications available.

 

i use Roxio DirectCD to formatt them and then i can use them like floppys (or at least they have worked that way at about 10 computers i have tried it out at