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Problems burning a DVD from the Finder

A

akadmon

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 30, 2006
2,006
2
New England
I'm having trouble burning a DVD from the Finder. First off, this is my first Mac (in 10 years), so please be understanding if I'm missing something obvious.

I've inserted a blank DVD into the superdrive, dragged the folder I want to burn on it, clicked burn, named the DVD and... nothing. The Burn window just keeps saying "Preparing data", but it never gets past this point. There are no sounds coming from the superdrive (or the hard drive, for that matter) to indicate that it's doing something. When I click on the little grey circle with an x to stop the burn and choose to stop, it goes right back to the Burn dialog. When I try to shut down/restart, I'm asked if I want to save the contents into a Burn Folder, but then, irrespective of what I choose, nothing happens. I still see the Burn dialog saying "Preparing data". I can still use the computer alright, but there is no way to shut it down other than by pulling the plug.

Am I missing something, or is there something wrong with my computer/system? :confused:

EDIT: After I restart (the "hard way"), I get a message that the disk inserted is unreadable. Now this whole thing has happened twice. The second time with a brand new Sony DVD-R! I'm so frustrated:(
 
That's odd... I've heard that repairing permissions could help in situations like that, but I had issues with disc burning awhile ago with an older computer, and they were never resolved.
 
maxrobertson said:
That's odd... I've heard that repairing permissions could help in situations like that, but I had issues with disc burning awhile ago with an older computer, and they were never resolved.
Click to expand...

I did repair permissions, as a matter of fact. And I did try this on two different accounts.
 
1. In my experience Macs are very picky about what CDs/DVDs they will write to. Try using another brand.
2. Maybe your DVD drive is broken.
3. In my experience, Toast is the only dependable method for burning media. The Finder sucks. Though Disco looks neat.
 
Unorthodox said:
1. In my experience Macs are very picky about what CDs/DVDs they will write to. Try using another brand.
2. Maybe your DVD drive is broken.
3. In my experience, Toast is the only dependable method for burning media. The Finder sucks. Though Disco looks neat.
Click to expand...

1. The drive is manufactured by Sony and I'm using Sony DVDs.
2. Not likely. I can read CDs alright, and I just burned a CD with a bunch of jpegs.
3. For basic backup like what I'm trying to do, the Finder should suffice.
 
Unorthodox said:
Have you ever successfully burned a DVD?
Click to expand...



I just did! At this very moment I'm burning to the same DVD that failed originally, and it seems to be working OK. The difference is that I am burning files that are on my Mac drive, whereas before I was burning files that are on an NTFS formatted Windows (external) drive. Weird. I'll try to burn files from a different directory on that external drive, If I run into problems, then OSX has a bug preventing it from burning files from an NTFS formatted external drive. I'll report soon. Anyone who's plugged into the OSX development team, please alert them.
 
akadmon said:
I just did! At this very moment I'm burning to the same DVD that failed originally, and it seems to be working OK. The difference is that I am burning files that are on my Mac drive, whereas before I was burning files that are on an NTFS formatted Windows (external) drive. Weird. I'll try to burn files from a different directory on that external drive, If I run into problems, then OSX has a bug preventing it from burning files from an NTFS formatted external drive. I'll report soon. Anyone who's plugged into the OSX development team, please alert them.
Click to expand...

OK, I smell something fishy. I copied the the folder that gave me problems from the NTFS external drive to my OSX drive, and it seems to be burning OK.

Next I'll copy the same folder to the internal NTFS drive (residing on my second internal HD). If a burn from this location doesn't work, then OSX has a bug preventing it from burning files stored on any NTFS formatted drive, irrespective of whether it's internal or external.
 
akadmon said:
OK, I smell something fishy. I copied the the folder that gave me problems from the NTFS external drive to my OSX drive, and it seems to be burning OK.

Next I'll copy the same folder to the internal NTFS drive (residing on my second internal HD). If a burn from this location doesn't work, then OSX has a bug preventing it from burning files stored on any NTFS formatted drive, irrespective of whether it's internal or external.
Click to expand...

Burning the problem directory once it's been copied to an internal NTFS formatted drive doesn't work. Just noticed some files in this directory are locked, some are hidden. I'll turn these flags off individually and report.
 
akadmon said:
Burning the problem directory once it's been copied to an internal NTFS formatted drive doesn't work. Just noticed some files in this directory are locked, some are hidden. I'll turn these flags off individually and report.
Click to expand...

Turning off hidden and locked flags did not work. I copied the problem folder (sans any special flags) to the OSX drive and started a burn. Seems to be working OK.
 
akadmon said:
Turning off hidden and locked flags did not work. I copied the problem folder (sans any special flags) to the OSX drive and started a burn. Seems to be working OK.
Click to expand...


Conclusion. You cannot burn a folder on an NTFS formatted drive if any of the files are flagged as locked or hidden in the Windows OS.
 
akadmon said:
[...]Next I'll copy the same folder to the internal NTFS drive (residing on my second internal HD).[...]
Click to expand...
This is odd -- as I understand it, physical (non-network) NTFS partitions are mounted as read-only under OS X. Or was it done under bootcamp?
 
Am3822 said:
This is odd -- as I understand it, physical (non-network) NTFS partitions are mounted as read-only under OS X. Or was it done under bootcamp?
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, I did the copying on the Windows side.

Now that the mystery has been solved, it's quite disappointing that OSX has no graceful way of getting out of the "can't burn this" funk. Having to yank the power cord is so unApple.
 
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