Drive Letter Access

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Drive Letter Access
Developed by Sonic Solutions
Latest release 5.2 build 09a / November 21, 2005
OS Windows
Genre optical disc authoring software
License proprietary
Website sonic.com

Drive Letter Access, DLA in short, is a commercial packet writing application for the Windows operating system that allows optical storage media to be used in a similar manner to a floppy disk. DLA utilizes packet writing technology for CD/DVD media and uses the UDF file system.

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[edit] History

DLA was originally developed by VERITAS Software and later sold to Sonic Solutions in 2002. It is very popular mainly because it was and still is shipped with a majority of CD and DVD recording drives, where DLA comes as a custom OEM version for the branded drive. Most PC systems from Dell, HP, IBM, Sony and Toshiba come with DLA pre-installed or prepared for installation; also, an OEM version can often be downloaded for the specific computer system.

[edit] Technology

To use an optical media such as a CD-R, CD-RW, DVD±R or DVD±RW just like a floppy drive it is necessary to utilize a technique called packet writing. After formatting the optical media it is then possible to write data in small packets, hence the name “packet writing.” The optical drive unit has to support the ability to write in small units, which all modern CD and DVD recording drives do. This way it is possible to save files onto optical media, as well as change, rename or delete them, or copy files separately onto the media.

Without packet writing, optical media like the above mentioned would have to be written on in one big block, like Disc At Once (DAO), Session At Once (SAO) and Track At Once (TAO), because these media types normally do not support sectors. After formatting with packet writing the media is sectored in blocks that can be written to individually. The preferred file system is the Universal Disk Format (UDF) in versions from 1.50 onward, which is also used by DLA.

Packet writing is not required for writing DVD-RAM. DVD-RAM media are already sectored (which can be seen when looking at the surface of an empty DVD-RAM disc) and the hardware logic of DVD-RAM capable drives supports sectored read/write operations as required by the DVD-RAM standard. However, for Windows up to 2000 DLA will also add support for DVD-RAM together with the UDF file system, for Windows XP DLA will only add the UDF support.
DLA also supports the Mount Rainier standard with MRW capable drives. For Windows up to XP DLA will provide this functionality as well as the UDF support.

Windows XP is the first Windows operating system to support DVD-RAM. Windows Vista is the first Windows operating system to support full UDF functionality (UDF up to version 2.50, full support meaning read and write operations) and Mount Rainier.

[edit] Versions

DLA is available only for Microsoft Windows operating systems and only in the English language.

  • Version 4.95 runs on Windows 98SE, Me, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP.
  • Version 5.2 build 09a is the most recent version for Windows 98SE, Me, 2000 and XP.

Note: Currently, most OEM versions officially support only Windows 2000 and XP; however, DLA itself also runs on older versions of Windows, like Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Me, as well as Windows NT 4.0.
Windows Vista is not supported.

[edit] Known Issues

  • DLA is known to cause stop errors (BSOD) on Windows Server 2003 operating systems.
  • DLA can lock up a Windows XP system when RW media is inserted.
  • DLA may prevent eject of media from an optical drive. If this is the case you need to restart your operating system.
  • DLA may prevent the proper installation of a program distributed on a rewritable CD or DVD. A solution is to deactivate the DLA function as follows: (1) Launch Windows Explorer; (2) Select the RW-CD drive, and; (3) Right click on the drive and deselect the menu “Use with DLA.”

[edit] See also

Techniques used by DLA:

Competing applications:

[edit] External links

Languages