How to Format (Erase) DVD+RW / DVD-RW Disks in Linux
Posted on In LinuxThis post introduces how to erase / blank / format a DVM+RW media on Linux in the command line.
First, you need to find out the device of the DVD/CD+RW drive on your Linux box. For example, on my box with Linux 3.3.4 kernel, my DVD/CD+RW drive is /dev/sr0. You can also see what the /dev/cdrom links to to find out the device path for the DVD/CD+RW drive. For example:
# ls /dev/cdrom -l lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 3 Aug 1 17:00 /dev/cdrom -> sr0
To format/erase a DVD+RW disk, we need the dvd+rw-tools tool. Install it if it has not installed yet:
# yum install dvd+rw-tools
Then we can format/erase the DVD+RW (actually no need to blank them explicitly)/DVD-RW disk using the dvd+rw-format tool after inserting it into the drive:
# dvd+rw-format -force /dev/sr0
BTW: the command to erase a CD+RW disk using cdrecord (provided by wodim):
# cdrecord dev=/dev/sr0 blank=fast
Thank you for posting this. After all my GUI-based DVD burning software failed to recognise (and therefore not be able to blank) a DVD to which a corrupted ISO was burned, this solved the problem.
Thanks for the feedback. I am very glad know that this post helps!
You mention DVD+RW only. Will the same command blank a DVD-RW?
Yes, according to the dvd+rw-format manual https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/1-dvd+rw-format/ :
dvd+rw-format … allows to … blank already written DVD-RW.
Thank you very much. It solved all my problem on cd+rw erase in Linux.