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TICKET ARCHIVE -> How to burn a CD-RW in Disk Utility

jverschu - Nov 12, 2007 - 6:45 pm

Hello MacOSX support member,

I was amazed how nice and simple my new Leopard could burn a CD-RW in Finder.... However I am currently stumped. Wondering whether I burned a CD under Tiger and that now having installed Leopard I am having problems...
I can erase CDRW disks in Disk Utility that have data on it. Doing so makes the disk icon disappear forever from the desktop. Ejecting and reinserting again does not make the disk icon reappear. I just inserted a blank CDR disk and also the disk icon does not appear. A DVD with data on it does show up. It is a combo drive.
I read in the MacHelp:

To burn a CD or DVD:
Insert a blank disc into the optical drive of your computer.

If you see a dialog, you can choose an action from the pop-up menu and select “Make this action the default” if you want the same thing to happen every time you insert a blank disc.
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I set it so that Disk Utility opens.
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The disc appears on your desktop.

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THAT it does not do with blank CD's... ONCE it did it but never since...
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Double-click the disc to open it, and drag the files and folders you want on it to its window.

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And when doing so I used to see the finder window change and get a burn Icon. Which made me smile and really be impressed with this native Mac burning solution... Anyway.. Why do my icons disappear as soon as I start erasing CDRW disks and why do blank CDR's and CDRW's not produce a DISK icon anymore on my desktop when I insert them into my combo drive??

Hope you can help!
Thanks
Jan

DeltaMac - Nov 12, 2007 - 8:38 pm

You changed the setting so that inserting a blank CD will open Disk Utility. So it does, but nothing else really happens. If you want the burn image (the CD-R or RW) to show in the Finder, then you would change that setting back to Open in Finder.
You can change that setting in your System Preferences/CDs and DVDs pref pane.

As you can see, the only real purpose for opening a CD in DIsk Utility, is to erase a CD-RW. Nothing much happens with a CD-R, although you can check the burn capabilities of an individual CD-R, by clicking on More Information next to the Capabilities section. Otherwise, not much use.

- Dale

jverschu - Nov 12, 2007 - 9:02 pm

Hi Dale,
Thanks for that help. All is back to normal. Follow up questions however. When wanting to burn items I see that the files I drag into the burn window get little arrows in the corners. In my windows days those arrows meant that it was only the shortcut, not the actual file. In OSX I suspect that that little arrow means "a copy" of that file: the full file? Also when wanting to burn items the way to do that is to have them lined up on the desktop so that they are grabbable to drag and drop from there into the Finder's burn window...? I cannot see another way to do it. Is that the way to go?
Thanks again.
Jan

DeltaMac - Nov 12, 2007 - 9:16 pm

If you want to burn a CD/DVD with some files of your choice - you simply drag those files to your CD-R icon on the desktop. You don't need to 'line up' your files, Just get to them, and drag to the CD-R icon.
Yes, you see the icons for the files as 'aliases', which is what the small arrow on each icon means.
It's one of the great features of that mounted disk! If you modify the source file before you burn the disk, the alias (similar to a short-cut in Windows, but smarter) still points to that file, even if modified. Then you eject the disk, which burns those files to your disk. Your burned disk has the last changes to those files, so you don't need to think about replacing any modified files - the Finder does that for you.... And you can save that disk image, with all the aliases, as a burn image that you can choose to burn again at a later date. And, without changing anything, that new burn will again have the latest files according to the aliases in the burn image. All without you needing to do much except choose to burn the same folder again.
Just to repeat myself - you burn the disk, and the actual files are copied and burned to the disk, not the aliases. Try it out for yourself...
- Dale

jverschu - Nov 12, 2007 - 9:33 pm

Hi Dale,

Lots of new info for an ex Windows man to digest, thank you! I will play with that later on. I just re inserted a CDRW and as I minimized programs to get to my finder I see TWO disks now on my desktop. "Untitled CD" and "Untitled CD 2". Before ejecting the last CDRW I was adding some files to it and than pulling them out of the window again into the trashcan. Then ejecting the CDRW. Now with your new info I pushed a CDRW back in again and the second CD show up on the icon..... ONE is a ghost?? What's up with that? In Finder it also lists the 2 CDRW's, both empty...
Thanks again.
Jan

jverschu - Nov 12, 2007 - 9:37 pm

Hi Dale,
Thanks for that help. All is back to normal. Follow up questions however. When wanting to burn items I see that the files I drag into the burn window get little arrows in the corners. In my windows days those arrows meant that it was only the shortcut, not the actual file. In OSX I suspect that that little arrow means "a copy" of that file: the full file? Also when wanting to burn items the way to do that is to have them lined up on the desktop so that they are grabbable to drag and drop from there into the Finder's burn window...? I cannot see another way to do it. Is that the way to go?
Thanks again.
Jan

DeltaMac - Nov 12, 2007 - 10:06 pm

I've never seen that behaviour, although it could be some new 'feature/bug' in Leopard. If both images are showing as empty, I might try erasing the CD-RW as a next step. (with Disk Utility)
I will say that I have little use for CD-RWs, as they are way too slow to use. I use CD-Rs until the data is outdated, then toss in the trash...

I hope I understand what you were saying about adding files, then pulling them out into the trash?
If you add files, then pull them out before burning, you get nothing. Burning simply means making the copy permanent (except with erasing a CD-RW, of course). Why would you move files in, then back out to the trash? You can't make any changes to the disk after you have burned the disk...
- Dale

jverschu - Nov 12, 2007 - 10:53 pm

Hi Dale,
Just off the phone with the G4 girlfriend who mentioned to also have had this happen in Tiger on her laptop occasionally: the image lingers on the desktop after ejecting the DVD or CD or when inserting: the icon does not show up... Well, with my 2 icons on the desktop I thought to insert the CDRW again and sure enough: "untitled CD-RW 3" showed up...! I just dragged one after the other to the trash can... The adding and than dragging files back out was just for no purposes whatsoever, I was just happy to see it all worked again. Call it a "pinching of the arm" thing :-)!
Anyway, that's that. I will have to dive into your previous comments how the burning and aliasing of files works to get a better understanding of this Leopard unit.
Thanks for now!

Jan

jverschu - Nov 13, 2007 - 11:19 pm

Hi Dale,
Just got the "waiting patiently" email here. I had little time to play with the machine here but looked into it a bit and see that you are referring to the so called burn folder which saves these smart shortcuts for later uptodate burning of the files. NEAT indeed. Lots to learn here still like making copies of CD's in Finder. The MacHelp is very good too I discovered. Well the THREE icons I got on my desk, and the girlfriend confirming also to have this happen in Tiger makes us not now all of a sudden OSX test people I hope... Just bought my first Mac darn it...! Anyway: thanks for this help now and I guess you may close the ticket. "I'll be back" with undoubtedly more questions that MacHelp cannot help me with.
Thanks again.
Jan