DVD RW Erasing Securely & Completely Question

[PGB1]

Hi All!
This might be a dopey question, but I sure can not figure out how to accomplish what I thought was a simple task, despite lots of trying & internet searching.
I have A DVD RW that I would like to erase, hopefully securely. The disk has two images on it. (I think they are called "images". They appear in finder as separate drives on the disk.)

When I erase it in Disk Utility, the names of the images don't get erased, but the data inside is, indeed, erased.
Is there a method that I missed in all my searching for removing the actual names of the disks to, when mounted, the drive appears totally empty?
And can a Secure Erase be done?

I sure appreciate your advice!
Paul

 

[pigoo3]

Are you trying to reuse this disk? If not…just scratch it up...cut it up…and throw it away.

- Nick

 

[chscag]

It sounds like the disk may have been multi-burned at one time. Anyway... Disk Utility does not do a very good erase on RW drives especially the DVD type. Try the free "Burn" application from Source Forge instead. Make sure you download the correct one - you want the 64 Bit version.

 

[RadDave]

Are you trying to reuse this disk? If not…just scratch it up...cut it up…and throw it away.

@ Paul - I'd have to agree w/ Nick, these DVD-RWs are a buck or less and if this is a security issue for you, why not just destroy the disc? Dave

 

[PGB1]

Thanks, Guys for taking time to reply.
To be honest, the other day I wanted to archive something to disk and had run out of DR-R disks. Going to the store sounded like far too much work, lazy bum that I often am. So, I searched for the answer and experimented. Nothing I found or tried worked. (During my Quest For Answers I learned that CD-RW is not a good medium to store archives, so the original plan was scrapped.)

But, I still wanted to learn how to erase these disks just to satisfy my own curiosity. (I wish I was that tenacious when I was in school.)

Thanks for the idea of Burn, Chscag.
Thanks, too, for the tip about the 64 bit version. That saved me some head scratching! Burn worked great and was surprisingly fast in accomplishing its task. It prevented one more disk from being cut up & put into the shim box.

Thanks Again All!
Paul

 

[harryb2448]

Must say I have never had problems erasing a DVD/CD-RW disc. Pop it in the optical drive, go to Disk Utility, highlight the disc and hit 'Erase' and then format Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

 

[PGB1]

Must say I have never had problems erasing a DVD/CD-RW disc. Pop it in the optical drive, go to Disk Utility, highlight the disc and hit 'Erase' and then format Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

For fun, I just tried another with Disk Utility. The data was erased, but the volumes remained (although empty).
Burn erased it totally (and quickly).
Crazy, ain't it?

 

[chscag]

Must say I have never had problems erasing a DVD/CD-RW disc. Pop it in the optical drive, go to Disk Utility, highlight the disc and hit 'Erase' and then format Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

For fun, I just tried another with Disk Utility. The data was erased, but the volumes remained (although empty).
Burn erased it totally (and quickly).
Crazy, ain't it?

Not crazy Paul. Disk Utility does a lot of things well, unfortunately erasing CDRW and DVDRW disks isn't one of them. Press on with Burn.