Technical Questions

2.2 Which media types are supported?

2.3 Which file systems are supported?

2.4 What does "SPTI" and "ASPI" mean?

The current version of dvdisaster contains screen texts in the following languages:

	English	--	complete
	German	--	complete
	Italian	--	complete

Translators for other languages are welcome!

dvdisaster will automatically obtain language settings from the operating system. If the local language is not yet supported, english text will be used. A different language can be selected using environment variables.

Example for the bash shell and german language:

export LANG=de_DE

export OUTPUT_CHARSET=iso-8859-1 (X11, XTerm)

or

export OUTPUT_CHARSET=CP850 (Windows)

dvdisaster supports (re-)writeable CD and DVD media.
Media containing multiple sessions or copy protections can not be used.

Useable media by type:

DVD-R, DVD+R

• No further limitations are known.

• The drive must be able to identify the medium type.

• Some drives report wrong image sizes.
  Remedy: Activate "Use information from the ISO/UDF file system"

• only Data CD are supported.

CD-Audio and CD-Video as well as DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM.

2.3 Which file systems are supported?

dvdisaster works exclusively on the image level which is accessed sector-wise. That means it does not matter with which file system the medium has been formatted.

Since dvdisaster neither knows nor uses the file system structure, it can not repair logical errors at the file system level. It can not recover lost or deleted files.

2.4 What does "SPTI" and "ASPI" mean?

Windows 98 and ME use drivers called "ASPI" to access CD/DVD drives. Windows NT and its successors provide similar functionality through an interface named "SPTI", but do still allow the installation of additional ASPI drivers.

>  Pro and Con of installing ASPI under Windows NT/2000/XP:

+	No administrator priviledges needed for accessing the drives.
-	ASPI does not map well onto the Windows drive letters.
-	Some CD/DVD writing programs install their own ASPI drivers. Installing another ASPI driver may interfere with the existing software.

>  Which ASPI versions are recommended for use with dvdisaster?

Adaptec provides their ASPI drivers free of charge for download. Sometimes versions 4.72.* have difficulties recognizing drives under Windows 2000/XP. Downgrading to version 4.60 usually helps in such cases.

>  Drive letters are wrong under ASPI!

ASPI drivers use their own system of identifying drives, which does not support the drive letter scheme of Windows.
In order to provide a unified access to SPTI and ASPI, dvdisaster tries to guess the mapping of ASPI drives to drive letters. However this does not work under all configurations.

The --list function prints out the current mapping of drive letters.

>  How to select between SPTI and ASPI?

dvdisaster will automatically choose between SPTI and ASPI, deciding in favor of SPTI if both are available. Usage of ASPI can be forced; see the description of the --list function for details.