Windows 7: Erasing a CD-RW disk

In the instructions from MS, it says to open Computer, click on drive that has the disk and on the "tool bar" click on "erase this disk". There is no option to erase showing.
How do I go about erasing the disk now?

I would use Imgburn. The first time Imgburn sees it, it will want to format it. That may take 20 minutes. After that you can do Quick Erase. The Erase options are in the Tools menu Drive submenu.

The Official ImgBurn Website

Can you just right click on your CD in "My Computer" and then click "format"? I would try it myself but i cannot find any of my RW disks. Sorry i cant help more.

You can right click the disk and select erase this disk.

I would think that your optical drive for some reason is not reading the CD-RW disc. When you right click on the drive as suggested by essenbe, do you get the Erase this Disc in the menu?

Try with a brand new CD-RW disc, and then check whether you get the "Erase this Disc" in the tool bar.

Also try writing to the new CD-RW disk. Does it burn?

My first thought was: You might have grabbed the wrong CD (i.e. a CD-R at least that's more plausible than loosing menu options out of the blue. Plus I can relate to it since it happened to me before, too

-DG

The built-in app is total crap, and unreliable on good days. Get ImgBurn or CDBurnerXP, both of which are free, and you'll have much more control over your disc burning.

More frills, features and control - absolutely true. (That also puts a learning curve ahead to use those features.)

But that does not address the basic issue raised by the OP - Why is the Erase this Disc missing in the tool bar?

(I do have ImgBurn, CDBurnerXP, Nero, Cyberlink's Power2Go, Ashampoo Burning Studio 10, many other programs that have auxiliary burn functions and others like IsoBuster which access the optical drive but none of them have taken away the basic Windows utility and I do use that erase function often instead of digging through the other programs.)

To all those that answered my problem with erasing a CD/RW diskette, many thanks. However, the problem remains; there is no erase option anywhere on my toolbar/s. Also right clicking on the CD drive icon does not bring up either erase or format options. So how would I go about getting those options back? I'm using Win7 Pro.

It may not help but try running scannow