create multi-session CD on OSX

[Not Exactly Thrilled]

What's the big deal about creating multi-session CDs under OSX?
Apparently, you must buy something like Roxio Toast (are there others?)
if you want to be able to write to a CD in more than one session.

Is it so difficult that Apple couldn't do it? Is Apple saying it isn't
recommended/reliable/practical? Does the restriction exist with DVDs as
well?

Comments?

[Tom Stiller]

In article <usenetOnly-622487.08233722072003@newstest2.earthlink.net>,
Not Exactly Thrilled <usenetOnly@earthlink.net> wrote:

> What's the big deal about creating multi-session CDs under OSX?
> Apparently, you must buy something like Roxio Toast (are there others?)
> if you want to be able to write to a CD in more than one session.

The Disk Copy utility will perform multiple session burns, it just
doesn't build the image automatically the way the Finder does.

>
> Is it so difficult that Apple couldn't do it? Is Apple saying it isn't
> recommended/reliable/practical? Does the restriction exist with DVDs as
> well?
>
> Comments?

--
Tom Stiller

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[matt neuburg]

In <usenetOnly-622487.08233722072003@newstest2.earthlink.net> Not
Exactly Thrilled wrote:

> What's the big deal about creating multi-session CDs under OSX?
> Apparently, you must buy something like Roxio Toast (are there others?)
> if you want to be able to write to a CD in more than one session.

What's the big deal about reading the frigging manual? In particular,
knowledge base article 107240 says you *don't* need something like Roxio
Toast; you can burn multi-session CDs with Apple's own Disk Copy. m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = [email]matt@tidbits.com[/email], [url]http://www.tidbits.com/matt[/url]
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[Tom Stiller]

In article
<usenetOnly-C8E896.08263524072003@news03.west.earthlink.net>,
Not Exactly Thrilled <usenetOnly@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Thank you Hugh, Matt, and Tom! Naturally, I am a little embarrassed to
> have not looked for a curious backdoor approach. And I certainly should
> have RTFM (oh, online technotes, thaaaaat manual). The basic problems
> for a program to create multiple virtual volumes on a CD are more
> apparent now.
>
> Using DiskCopy in the simplest case isn't that bad. Of course, you have
> to put individual files in a folder. After dragging the folder to
> DiskCopy, it's not hard to locate and "burn" the DMG. Yet there seems
> to be a minor difficulty with folder background images: they aren't
> shown in a Finder view of the folder on CD. Is that due to DiskCopy or
> Finder?.

You could just create the disk image in advance and then drag files
and/or folders to it as desired. Once you're satisfied with the
contents of the disk image, you can burn it to CD as either a single or
multi-session volume.

>
> Copying multiple distinct folders is a bigger problem. You either have
> to do a "pre-image" copy to a single folder or iterate image-burn for
> each folder.
>
> So is it really impossible to append to a CD with just a single
> drag-n-drop and get a Finder-level replica of the source? Is it too
> much to expect that copying single files and multiple folders work in
> the same fashion as copying a single folder? Does Roxio Toast (or any
> other program) offer any improvements on DiskCopy?

The Finder views a multi-session CD as multiple volumes, not as a single
"extended" volume. Given that, the concept of extending a (CD) volume
by dragging additional folders to it doesn't follow.

--
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF