This is a hardware issue rather than a software one. Buy a DVD drive that
supports DVD-RAM - I can recommend LG drives.
In WinXP format the disk and away you go - use it like a big floppy (or a
slow hd)
In linux - well I have not had much success there - I use Kanotix, a debian
derivitive and while the device manager recognises the drive as DVD-RAM
capable, it will not mount a dvd-ram disk although CD and DVD +/- work fine.
Linux formums say it does work so I suppose I will have to change some
settings.