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CDs written on G5-iMac won't read on G3-iMac


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CDs written on G5-iMac won't read on G3-iMac
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SQUIRRI
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2005-11-27, 11:08

I have a G5-Imac/512MB/Superdrive running 10.4.3. I also have an old 'clamshell' iBook G3/192MB running 10.3.9.

I regularly archive 'useful' stuff onto CD(freeware, data files, info stored as PDF's etc). I use Toast 6 or sometimes Finder burn folders to save this stuff onto CD. All the burning is done on the G5(the G3 does not have a CD burner).

Disks written on the G5 in Mac OS Extended farmat will not work properly on the G3. The symptons are as follows:

The CD drive grinds away for ages
Eventually the CD mounts and I can see the contents.
Selecting an object and trying to drag it across to the G3 hard-drive resulting in more grinding and usually an error message saying that the disk is corrupted. I also have an old beige G3 running OS/9 and get the same problems n that machine.

If I pop the CD back into the G5, it mounts perfectly.

Audio CD;s burnt on the G5 work fine on any CD player or computer(including Windows PC's)

Disk images on the G5, formatted for PC & Mac work fine on both.

Can anyone explain what is going on here? In a Mac environment I really don't want to muck around formatting CD's for Mac and PC! I've been using the workround of loading the CD onto the G5 and then copying files across my network.

FWIW, when the G5 was running Panther I used BootCD to make - a boot CD. This works fine on the G5, but again won't work on the G3 - it just grinds away for about an hour before coming back with an error.

AFAIK, the CD drive on the G3 is fine - it reads everything else I throw at it apart from these CDs(this is confirmed by the fact that they won't work on the other G3 too).

Any insights on this would be most helpful

I have tried booting from the install disks and repairing permissions on both machines before burning and then trying to use the CD's

Thanks

Rick


Journaling is not enabled for these CDs
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iDorf
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Rochester, NY
 
2005-11-27, 13:28

I have similar machines - G5 Powermac 10.3.4 and G3s using 9.2 and 10.2.8. When using Toast I always use "Mac OS Extended + PC (hybrid)". Never a problem. I don't have toast loaded on G5 yet, but burning through finder works fine to read on all machines.
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WMD
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Join Date: Nov 2005
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2005-11-27, 15:32

Try burning at a slower speed. I had that work for reading in a Sawtooth G4.
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PB PM
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
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2005-11-27, 16:50

That is a major issue. Older machines don't read as fast as the new ones, so you might be burning them at faster speeds than the G3 CD drives can read.
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SQUIRRI
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2005-11-27, 17:13

Thanks for the replies so far. I will try burning at a lower speed - but this doesn't really explain whu there is a problem, because the burn speed surely only determines the time to burn - if it works the data(i.e. no verification errors) is there surely? Also, the G3 will still pnly be reading at whatever speed it runs at - or am I missing something here - i.e. is there some correlation between burn speed and what gets put down on the disk - I always thought the CD 'track' was 5 km long(or whatever).

Also, iTunes gives you no control over the burn speed(no doubt there is a hack to get round this) and audio CD's burned on the G5 using iTunes *always* work - on everything from audio CD's, Sony MP3 players, PCs etc etc..

Also - why does 'Mac & PC' work when 'Mac only' won't?

I'll keep plugging away & let you know how it goes

Thanks again for the prompt repsonses

Rick
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iDorf
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Rochester, NY
 
2005-11-27, 19:57

U'r right - makes little sense that burn speed makes a diff - especially when U see success with diff format. But, truth is a slower burn makes a slightly (very slightly) diff CD. Less prone to errors from a slightly out of balance disk - stuff like that. The slower the speed (RPM) the better the burn in general.
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SQUIRRI
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2005-11-29, 16:02

Well,

I tried burning at 1x and still got the same problem. I just copied a few files into Toast(not a full disk's worth) and burned the disk. Zilch again - the CD grinds away for ages, then evetually mounts on the desktop. A PDF that takes seconds to load normally takes about 10 minutes. Everything else I tried just came up with a disk error. I've had a poke through the G3 system logs and there are a few 'last operation repeated 8 times' entries that I think relate to the CD drive(I'm not a Unix person - give me MVS any day!).

I even tried BootCD again on the G3 this time, copied the image across the network to the G5 and burned it at 1x. ttp://www.konfabulator.com/
It boots the G5 fine - but won't boot the G3

As this is not a major issue for what I want to do - I can live with the PC/Mac format I can do what I need to do.

But I'd dearly like to understand why it won't work. From the posts you've made it has to be something to do with newer drivers(closer tolerances?)

I have got an old USB CD burner knocking around somewhere - maybe I'll try hooking that up to the G3 and burning on that drive.

Thanks again for all the responses
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