CD-RW nightmares

[retta283]

So on my iMac I have an old program that is activated and functions fine, but I lost the disc in a move. I found the image file online but it needs to be on a physical disk to register with the program.

So I find my old CD-RWs and prepare to burn. One is empty, one already had stuff on it. I remove the stuff on the second disk, and attempt to burn. It tells me there is not enough free space. I look, and it says it has 0 bytes of data on the disk, and 0 bytes free. I then burn the disk empty in Finder, which returns a 1.2mb CD. Not enough space at all. So I try again, this time I get a 18kb disk. Useless.

This was done on my 2010 iMac running latest version of Sierra. Figuring I had a hardware problem, I attempted the same process on my 2005 iMac G5 running OS X Tiger. Same garbage. I have no clue what I'm doing wrong here because these disks used to function fine the last time I used them was about 8 months ago. At this point I am convinced that the disks are failed or that Mac OS is just crap when it comes to burning CDs.

 

[chscag]

The solution is not to use CD-RW disks. Buy some new CDs or DVDs and try again. Also you might try the free "Burn" software instead of using the built in software. Try this LINK: https://sourceforge.net/projects/burn-osx/

 

[retta283]

The solution is not to use CD-RW disks. Buy some new CDs or DVDs and try again. Also you might try the free "Burn" software instead of using the built in software. Try this LINK: https://sourceforge.net/projects/burn-osx/

The problem isn't the disks. I've used these disks for years with OS X because that's usually what my customers requested me to burn data to.

Why would it be that after 20 years I am only now having the issue with rewritable?
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Also, the discs work fine under Windows. Popped them in and they show proper size and free space. Put some data on the one that I first messed up with, no problem. The Mac even reads the data I copied with that disk. It just won't let me erase or work with them on Mac.

 

[ActionableMango]

or that Mac OS is just crap when it comes to burning CDs

Disk Utility was dumbed down some time around Sierra or High Sierra, including dumping important optical disk functions. If you have a pre-Sierra MacOS installation you should be able to erase the CD-RW and recover its full space to copy to. If you only have Sierra or newer, then you can still use third party burning software just fine.

Remember when you have a disc image, you don't want to copy the image file itself to the blank disc, you want to do a full disc copy with the image file as the source "disc". A lot of people don't understand the difference, but it is critical.

However, all of this might be moot. Typically when old software is authenticating with a disc check, it is for copy protection purposes and very often recordable media won't work in place of the original media.

 

[retta283]

Disk Utility was dumbed down some time around Sierra or High Sierra, including dumping important optical disk functions. If you have a pre-Sierra MacOS installation you should be able to erase the CD-RW and recover its full space to copy to. If you only have Sierra or newer, then you can still use third party burning software just fine.

Remember when you have a disc image, you don't want to copy the image file itself to the blank disc, you want to do a full disc copy with the image file as the source "disc". A lot of people don't understand the difference, but it is critical.

However, all of this might be moot. Typically when old software is authenticating with a disc check, it is for copy protection purposes and very often recordable media won't work in place of the original media.

Tried it using OS X Tiger on my G5 iMac, same deal. I also popped it into my 2008 MBP with Snow Leopard, same issue.

It very well could be moot though, so I've given up and have begun a search for the original disks, probably will need to buy them online.

 

[chscag]

Try erasing the CD-RWs with the software that I linked for you. It's free and worth a try. But to be honest, I do not trust CD-RW media especially when you're stating that the media is old.

 

[Fishrrman]

"The problem isn't the disks. I've used these disks for years with OS X because that's usually what my customers requested me to burn data to.
Why would it be that after 20 years I am only now having the issue with rewritable?"

The problem likely IS "with the disks".
"RW" disks are prone to problems and are much more likely to give errors than "non-rewritable" blanks.

Get an "ordinary" non-writeable blank and try again.

It would sure help if you told us WHAT application you are trying to run.

 

[lederermc]

The solution is not to use CD-RW disks. Buy some new CDs or DVDs and try again. Also you might try the free "Burn" software instead of using the built in software. Try this LINK: https://sourceforge.net/projects/burn-osx/

I had a similar problem with DVD-RW's. I ended up tossing about 20 and buying 50 DVD-R blanks for about $15; however, I think I saw an erase option with the "Burn" app when I inserted a blank DVD-R. The bottom line is: blanks are cheap ($), rewritable are slow to burn and even slower to erase and not really supported on the Mac anymore.

 

[retta283]

"The problem isn't the disks. I've used these disks for years with OS X because that's usually what my customers requested me to burn data to.
Why would it be that after 20 years I am only now having the issue with rewritable?"

The problem likely IS "with the disks".
"RW" disks are prone to problems and are much more likely to give errors than "non-rewritable" blanks.

Get an "ordinary" non-writeable blank and try again.

It would sure help if you told us WHAT application you are trying to run.

It would be more convincing that the disks were at fault if I didn't have over 50 of them. Some were still sealed in the package when I got to them. Unless a "disease" has spread through all my disks, I doubt they are at fault. Remember, they work as intended under Windows.

Tried an old DVD-RW disk and it gave the same problem. I might try to buy some DVD-R disks, since I found out the software is not possible to find for sale on eBay or Amazon for reasonable prices. Like I say, I have purchased the program (it's a PPC era Mac game, intended to run on my G5) and it is activated, but I just need the disk.

I also tried to download an old version of Toast, but it did not work as when I attempted to mount the image file it gave me "error 192" so that has most likely failed. Looks like my only option is to buy some DVD-R disks, even though I hate the idea of investing money into the format that I won't use for anything more than this process.