Disappearing Files written on CD

[MacDieHeart]

I've been pounding the KB and my fingers are numb and my eye cockeyed searching an answer for this on the WEB. I've seen some questions related to it but no answers. HELP! PLEASE!

I burned some film clips to CDs, with various AVI, MPG, WMV, etc formats. After mounting the burned CD, I noticed some of the icons missing but file name is there. When I click on the file, the whole thing disappears. If I eject the CD and remount, the files (minus icon) are back. Click on it and it disappear again. It used to just happen with some AVI files only. Now it happens with MGP files also...not all, just some. I don't know why which ones are effected. If I mounted the CD on a wintel machine, the files are fine. The same happens if I try to load the files through an application. The file disappears when I click it in the popup in the navigation dialog box.

Please help. It's driving me batty. Thanks.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

How are you burning the CDs?

[barhar]

'I burned some film clips to CDs, with various AVI, MPG, WMV, etc formats.' - on a Mac, or on a PC?, Via the operating system itself?, or with what application (and version number), if any? If a Mac, what version MacOS X is your unknown Mac model running?

[Mikuro]

This has happened to me before. I think it was because I burned an ISO9660 CD using Toast 5 with settings that it didn't like. IIRC, I had it set to "allow Macintosh names", and some of the files had names that were greater than 31 characters (the limit in OS 9, but not in OS X).

I'm pretty sure there's no way to get the files to work on OS X. Burn the disc again, taking care to use names and formats that are compatible. Sometimes it's hard to know what's compatible with what, though.

For what it's worth, I've never had the problem with Toast 6. That might just be coincidence, though.

[MacDieHeart]

Thanks guys for the quick responses. I burned the CDs on a G4 running OSX 10.3.9, using Toast 6. The CDs (and recently DVDs) are burnt as data disks using ISO9660, CD-ROM (not CD-ROM XA), and allowing MacIntosh names. I chose allow Mac names because longer PC files names get truncated with garbage. Here's what I have observed: Length of file names doesn't appear to be problem. I've had some file names no longer than 6 characters plus file extension disappearing. So far I've only notice this to happen to AVI files but also with MPG files. On multiple file CDs, the none AVI files are normal and not all avi files disappear when clicked on.

As I said, it's driving me batty trying to figure out what's happening or what's different about the files that are effected. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Mikuro]

Hmm. I thought it was all about the length, so I'm not sure. Are there by any chance brackets — [] — in the names of the files that don't work? I remember that there were the last time I had the problem, and after I cut out the bracketed part, it worked.

Have you tried using Joliet naming? It should support long file names, too. I don't remember if there are any gotchas with it, though. It's been a while since I've tried it.

[MacDieHeart]

Same thing happens with Joliet naming...burn the CD....some files disappear when clicked on. This has been happening for over a year now...just now and then...not always. So I have tried the usual no special characters in the name, file permissions, etc. Hope to hear more ideas as to what it might be.

[easterhay]

This is not a wholly constructive reply, more a general truth: as a switcher using 10.3.9 on a 12" iBook G4, one of the few areas where I've found the Mac lets me down in comparison with Windoze is burning cross platform, multisession CDs. I have no gripe about music CDs or single session CDs, but if I want to leave a disc open for appending (using Disk Util) on a Mac I tend to have dreadful problems reading the files on other machines afterwards.
So if I download / create files I want to back up on CD, I tend to transfer them, whenever possible, to a PC and burn them there. I'm left with the impression that it's simply something OsX doesn't do very well, though I'd be delighted to be re-informed.
So apologies, not an answer to your original thread, but perhaps useful to someone.
easterhay