CD-burning app with 1x option?

[macstatic]

Are there any apps which allow me to burn data CDs at the lowest possible speed (1x)?
I'm trying to burn some CDs on my Mac Pro (10.13.6 High Sierra) which are to be used with a vintage 80's computer, but they can't be read there despite using the correct format (ISO-9660/Joliet). The CDs work fine on the Mac though.

Actually it's been a while/several MacOS versions ago that I burnt a CD and had trouble finding options for doing this in High Sierra -so I gather Apple have either trimmed down this feature, hidden it very well, or removed it altogether. They have a tendency of removing useful features which they consider "outdated"
So I came across the Open source Burn which seems to do everything I want except I don't get to choose between any other speeds that 4x. The Superdrive in my Mac Pro is, according to System information (when inserting a CD-RW disc):

HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GH41N:

Firmware Revision: PQ06
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media:
Type: CD-RW
Blank: Yes
Erasable: Yes
Overwritable: Yes
Appendable: Yes
Write Speeds: 10x

And refreshing the above after inserting a CD-R disc:

HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GH41N:

Firmware Revision: PQ06
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media:
Type: CD-R
Blank: Yes
Erasable: No
Overwritable: Yes
Appendable: Yes
Write Speeds: 4x, 8x, 16x, 24x, 32x

Are there other apps I could try out?
I did buy "Toast" a few years back, but it's not compatible with High Sierra. If someone thinks Toast could solve the issue I could probably install a lower MacOS version on an external drive in order to re-install Toast, but I'd rather not if there are simpler ways to do this.

 

[abbeybound]

Old CD drives can be very picky about burned media, I rather doubt 2x vs 1x burning is really going to affect the integrity of the data. I'd start by trying different brands of CDs and possibly clean the lens on the old drive. I've had success burning discs for Performa era Macs on newer macs and PCs at higher rates. Definitely don't mess with RW.

 

[macstatic]

Someone suggested I try burning an audio CD with the same discs to see what happens. I did that (in iTunes) and the disc worked just fine on the other computer! Does this mean that the writing speed is OK?
What else can I try, and why is the writing speed on all the Mac burning apps I've tried either greyed out or only give me one option (4X)?
I'd still like to try burning at a lower speed, before I give up, if possible -is there a way to do this, setting it to say 1X? Maybe some terminal command if it's considered an "expert option" by Apple and otherwise hidden?

The drive on the other computer is a Plextor PX-20TS "12/20 Plex" (SCSI).

 

[vanillaspice]

I have to second cleaning the lens and ditching the -RW. Your media and your burner may not even have 1x options if they're newer. Data discs shouldn't require anything more than Finder or the Disk Utility if you *really* want to create an .ISO image first.

 

[macstatic]

Yes, cleaning is a good idea, so I opened it up today and cleaned the lens. Made no difference, so maybe it has to do with the actual CD-RW discs (though I find it strange that burning an audio CD worked OK with the same CD-RW discs). Unfortunately I don't have that many blank CD-R discs left to try which is why I'm experiementing with eraseable (CR-RW) discs first....

 

[vanillaspice]

Yes, cleaning is a good idea, so I opened it up today and cleaned the lens. Made no difference, so maybe it has to do with the actual CD-RW discs (though I find it strange that burning an audio CD worked OK with the same CD-RW discs). Unfortunately I don't have that many blank CD-R discs left to try which is why I'm experiementing with eraseable (CR-RW) discs first....

Just from years of experience, -RW disks get read on a lot fewer drives. An odd thought, though—are you duplicating a disk or are you burning files to transport them? If you are only burning files, you may want to double-check that the disk is "finished." One reason an audio CD might work and a data CD might not if on the same medium is because audio CDs have to have index headers written before they will play, whereas data disks—and especially rewritables—will often not have the index header written until you "finish" or "finalize" the disk image. If you Get Info on the RW disk that doesn't work on the old machine, what capacity does it list? If the disk is finished, it should say 0.

 

[saudor]

Yes, cleaning is a good idea, so I opened it up today and cleaned the lens. Made no difference, so maybe it has to do with the actual CD-RW discs (though I find it strange that burning an audio CD worked OK with the same CD-RW discs). Unfortunately I don't have that many blank CD-R discs left to try which is why I'm experiementing with eraseable (CR-RW) discs first....

The problem with RW is that its recording layer is a lot less reflective and older CD drives have issues reading it. In fact, many wont even read it at all.
That being said, if yours worked with audio, you may want to make sure when you're storing data that the session is closed (which as another person said, writes the index)

Back in the old days, you could pick how you burned the data (e.g Session at once, track at once, and packet writing) macOS might be leaving the session open so it's readable in computers with writers but not readers.

 

[macstatic]

You guys were absolutely spot on!
I tried burning with one of my preacious CD-R discs (I only have a few of them left and needed them all for this project) and it worked perfectly right away! It looks like the write speed is determined by the disc itself, not the drive.
I chose the lowest speed first (4X I think) and when that worked OK I tried the maximum speed (32X) for the next one which also turned out perfect. The CD-R discs say "48X" on them which I assume refers to the maximum burning speed (probably faster than my Superdrive can handle since it chose 32X).

It's still a puzzle why burning audio on the CD-RW worked, and yes -I deliberately chose to close each session when burning. Might just have been a lucky incident or something. I didn't know that about -RW discs having a less refelctive layer, but that would make sense with older drives having problems reading them. I assume this is because they're old as in aged/worn, with a laser that isn't like it was new? Or perhaps it's just the technology which has advanced since then. Doesn't matter though, because the solution was simpler than all of this, so next time I'll just skip the CD-RW mess and have enough CD-Rs to allow burning a few coasters in case I get the format etc. wrong the first couple of times.

As for software I actually first tried booting into MacOSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) in order to reinstall my previously purchased (but no longer compatible with current MacOS 10.13.6 High Sierra) Roxio Toast 8. Luckily I had an external drive with MacOSX 10.6. on it which was very handy. But unsurprisingly that made no difference (it still wouldn't burn below 4X), so I rebooted into my regular High Sierra, opened up the "Burn" app where I dragged over the main folder I wanted to burn to the CD, chose the correct format (ISO 9660 and Joliet) and off we went!

By the way, would I be able to do this in the Finder itself, or was this the only way to go (using a 3rd party burning app)? I know I've burnt CDs from the Finder in the past, but it's not really self-explanetory and I wouldn't know where to find the burn options (if any), so "Burn" looked like a good replacement for "Toast" (which wasn't exactly cheap as far as I can remember). Does the Finder on its own burn a Hybrid HFS/ISO-9660 format of some sort perhaps?

 

[saudor]

I never needed to go below 4X in my experience (and i did all my discs using 4X and sometimes 8X for data). Going higher of course tend to lead to unexpected results especially with audio CDs so even though i had discs capable of 48x, etc, I always chose 4X.

I vaguely remember that with later discs, they also had a minimum write speed. RW media was especially notorious for enforcing a certain minimum. In fact I still have a bunch that says 4-10x. You may be running into this issue.

As for -RW, it's the dye used that affects reflectivity. (if you look at the back, you'll notice that they are dark grey whereas -R media tends to use lighter dyes) My 2X CD Drive in my old 486 had issues with even CD-R media. I swapped it with a 8X drive (also using an IDE interface) and had no issues. If you want to use RW, you might be able to just pick up a IDE CD-RW drive for cheap

 

[vanillaspice]

The shortest way I can think to say it is that writable and rewritable media conform to later specs than older readers were built for—they were only built for factory pressed media. Later readers can adjust the wavelength of the laser and can adjust signal gain on the fly.