Can a DVD-RW drive take DVD-R disks?

Factual Questions
1

The question is in the title. My recording programs will not recognize that I have a recordable DVD in the drive. I always thought RW drives could take R disks.

2

Short answer:
They can.

Long answer:
There are five types of recordable DVD media:
DVD-RAM
DVD-R
DVD-RW
DVD+R
DVD+RW

Your burner might accept as few as one of those types (DVD-RAM) or as many as four (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW). Most burners will accept DVD-R and DVD-RW media but there are many that only accept DVD+R and DVD+RW media.

3

Thank you much. I have been searching and came up with the same thing you just said after a serious pain. Turns out I only take +R/RW and I have -R/RW disks. I thought it was an R vs RW problem but it is a + vs - problem.

So, what is the difference?

4

They are different formats of disks, just like your PC floppy disk would not have been readable by a Macintosh back in the bad old days. The first format out was DVD-RAM, followed by DVD-R/RW, and most recently DVD+R/RW.

DVD+R/RW is generally considered to be the best format from a technical perspective, but DVD-R/RW is generally compatible with the widest variety of devices (DVD-ROM drives in computers, set top DVD players, and DVD burners.)

Probably the real reason there are two main formats (DVD-RAM is a niche market only) is because certain manufacturers did not want to pay patent licensing fees to use the DVD-R format and decided to produce the DVD+R format so they would not have to.

You can read more about this at VideoHelp.