My dvd recorder is meant to overwrite titles but it won't?

Question

According to my users manual my dvd recorder is able to overwrite the titles I record but when I try to select the feature it seems to be locked. Why is this so?

Answer 1

Are you recording onto a disc or the hard drive?

If you are recording onto disc is it a DVD +/- R or DVD +/- RW? A DVD+/- R is only able to be written on once while the +/-RW can be written over on multiple occasions. Also some DVD recorders will only use - format discs or  + format discs (and if they use + format discs some will only playback disc, even if they are RW). DVD-RW discs are the most common rewritable disc.