Writing CDs in Linux (CD-R and CD-RWs work the same) deals with devices. cdrecord doesn't care what fstab says, it just streams the data to the CD writing device. What's in fstab is only important for mounting discs in the CD-RW drive. You can write pretty much whatever you want to a CD. You can, for instance, dd /dev/hda to a file and write that to a CD to have a snapshot of a drive (ext2 filesystem and all) on a CD. Assuming of course it will fit on a CD. You could even pipe the data through cdrecord and skip the file stage. iso9660 supports all the pertinent information so you can back up an ext2 partition without losing anything, and it will be readable on other platforms (be careful of permissions) CD-RWs must be written in one shot like a CD-R, the advantage being that you can erase them and use it again. They are not random access like a HD or other magnetic media. My experience is sort of so so with CD-RWs anyway. Some CD-ROMs like them, some don't. I mostly use them to test images and use a plain CD-R if I want to move data to somewhere. Charlie Timothy Wilson wrote: > I guess this is where I'm confused. Isn't the whole point of having a CD-RW > (emphasis on the "W") so you can write on it? If I put 'ro' in fstab, how > will that affect things. Also, can't I put an ext2 filesystem on it?