sw write blocker for a cd/dvd drive?

well.

afaik DVDs and optical supports are write-once read-many supports,

what i mean is that even for rewritable supports (DVD-RW) or open session discs, you need to call for a specific drive function to start writing (and altering) the support.

so i think that a write blocker doesn't exist becouse there's no need to write block an optical drive.

since write blocking solutions are for preventing accidental writing to an evidence and since (imho) there is no way to accidentally write to a CD/DVD/BD, i think that programming/building a write blocker for optical storage media is useless.

if you are just experimenting, and want to know what happens, you can try to connect a sata dvd-rw to an hardware write blocker and check if write commands to optical drive are blocked too.

i think that write blockers only blocks ata and SCSI write commands on the bus (hardware)

The purpose of a write-blocker is to prevent what you're doing (acquisition) from writing to and modifying the source. As such, if you were to use a DVD-ROM that did not support multi-session writing, you should be fine.

A few years ago we found that if you looked at a writable CD/DVD with Windows Explorer the last accessed dates were auto'magically' changed. This was due to the OS being able to create CD/DVDs on it's own. We switched over to using ISOsbuster (which doesn't background-write to optical media) so we could examine the individual sessions.

From memory I think the book CD/DVD Forensics suggests that you use a drive which is capable of writing to the disk as opposed to a reader as a reader cannot access any sessions that are not finalised so you will not image everything.

H

http//www.infinadyne.com/cddvd_inspector.html
Although outside the OP price request, understanding of how CD/DVD Inspector works when reading CD/DVD file systems might help.

Take a Google at ISO 9660 - CDFS (Compact Disc File System) andUniversal Disk Format (UDF).

Have you tried to do a full image if the disk in question in a forensic Linux build?

since write blocking solutions are for preventing accidental writing to an evidence and since (imho) there is no way to accidentally write to a CD/DVD/BD, i think that programming/building a write blocker for optical storage media is useless..

Is DVD-RAM entirely forgotten, then? It's not a household product, but you can easily put a FAT file system on one, and I have no reason to believe that the standard changes that happen on mounting a FAT HDD for some odd reason don't happen on DVD-RAM.

Most DVD-writers support DVD-RAM, though not in it's boxed form – so it's really up to the person doing the imaging to be alert enough to recognize the media as DVD-RAM.

This is not relevant tot he thread, I admit, as it seems to be about CD media.

With all due respect for all posters, a mastered CD/DVD is READ ONLY ALWAYS, while a recorded CD/DVD may behave slightly different, on some Windows OS, BUT needs NOT ANY write blocker (hardware or software) if read into a READER.

Yes, besides CD/DVD burners there exist also plain CD/DVD readers and they ALREADY are a HARDWARE blocker device by design (and a pretty UNexpensive one).

The OP completely failed to mention the actual type of media, actual OS he plans to use AND hardware he has available, thus anything posted here is more a shot in the dark than an actual answer to any actual question.

jaclaz

If it's just a plain DVD why not get a DVD-drive which is not able to write DVDs? Check eBay or so ).

If it's just a plain DVD why not get a DVD-drive which is not able to write DVDs? Check eBay or so ).

Might not be able to read certain CD/DVD file systems or open sessions.