Bootable DVDRAM: is it possible

Is it possible to build a bootable DVDRAM capable of writing to itself?

The bootable part is probably much the same as another bootable CD or DVD:
1. put on a boot image that:
a: creates a RAMDRIVE
b: loads al relevant drivers
c: copies al other stuff to the RAMDRIVE
d. starts up the relevant environment which has the DVDRAM available.

The dificult part may be to get this environment to write back to the DVDRAM

Have seen some pages with experiments for Linux and some hints that it would be possible. But no-one came ut with a final recipe.

Ideas?

Cheers

Drio

 

This is where I got:

The following link gives you Panasonic software enabling to format DVDRAM with UDF1.5, UDF2 and FAT32. It works with the LG drives.
http://panasonic.co.jp/psec/support/dvdram/lim/eoem/sw9573drvxp.html

In most cases Windows Disk Management can do FAT32, so you would not need it. It gave an error in my case.

To make it bootable you need to do a SYS from a bootable floppy.

And to build a recovery system from it you would need to include a ramdrive in CONFIG.SYS, and copy all the necessary files into the ramdrive in AUTOEXEC.BAT (don't forget to copy command.com and setting the comspec to the ramdrive)
after that you can feed your backups in the DVD-drive and let the softs in your ramdrive unpack it to the right place.


Note that FAT32 (let alone journalling file systems like NTFS or Linux Ext3) is generally NOT advisable for DVDRAM as it will wear out the disk fast at a certain point (the directory).

Those stuck with old drives (not DVDRAM enabled), could have a look at the tdb site ( http://tdb.rpc1.org/#GSA4080N), AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!