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Create multi-session CD-Rs in OS X Apps
James Sentman announced today the "public beta" of his new shareware app CD Session Burner. CD Session Burner does only one thing, but it does it well - it burns multi-session CD's in HFS+ format. A multi-session CD is one which you write to multiple times, with each write creating a new volume as seen by the Finder (that's my non-technical description of how a multi-session disc behaves, at any rate!).

This is incredibly useful for those times when you need to burn some stuff to a CD-R, but you don't have enough to fill the disc. Instead of wasting one disc on a partial write, you can use CD Session Burner, write the data you need, and then add more to the disc later. It's also very useful for incremental backups, where you could create a "volume" for each day's backups, and keep several days worth of data on one CD-R.

I did manage to get the program to enter an error loop on me once; I dragged in a very large folder with a lot of sub-folders and package files, and got a "Item number XX is nil" (where "XX" is 1 to 4) message over and over. I'm not sure what caused it, and it only happened once. Everything else worked fine, and I'm now looking at a desktop covered with about 10 different volumes, all part of the same CD!

I'm still hoping this functionality may be included in Jaguar, but if it's not, then I'll be investing in a copy of CD Session Burner to provide some flexibility in how I use my CD-R media.
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Create multi-session CD-Rs in OS X | 14 comments | Create New Account
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Nothing too fancy
Authored by: mithras on May 15, '02 08:31:24AM
I was posting about this in the MacNN forums, but I'll drop the note here too. This little program - which does have a nifty interface, BTW - is just a wrapper around the command-line tool hdiutil. In particular, it does this sequence: hdiutil create mount_hfs (copy your files onto the disk image) hdiutil eject hdiutil resize hdiutil burn which is also what the Finder does. The only difference is that the program calls hdiutil burn -noforceclose, which doesn't close the disc. If I have time I'll work up a (free) applescript studio interface to do the same thing.

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Nothing too fancy
Authored by: gvitale on May 15, '02 12:19:37PM

Thank you very much: what can be done at the comand line should'n be done at the GUI, expecialy if it does cost money (as it will be rhe case here when the beta will expire).
Thanks again!!!



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I respectfully disagree
Authored by: robg on May 15, '02 01:00:32PM

If something can be done at the command line, I think it's perfectly fine to have a version that works in the GUI, even if it costs money. There will always be a percentage of OS X users (maybe even a majority percentage) who would prefer to stay away from the command line, and it's good that they have options available.

Personally, I'll probably choose to register this product, just because I find the concept of drag and drop much easier than starting a terminal and issuing a few commands whenever I want to burn something. If a freeware AppleScript comes along that does the same thing, I'd probably use that instead.

In general, if there's a way to gain GUI access to UNIX command-line functionality, that can only be a good thing for the Mac platform in general -- it's a good way to keep both the GUI and command line users happy!

-rob.



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I respectfully disagree
Authored by: gvitale on May 16, '02 04:37:40AM

Of course you are wright robg; what I mean is that for those of us that are not allergic to the command line, its a considerable save of money, energy and computer resources to use the built-in resources of Darwin. Maybe most people have big wallets, huge hard drives and unlimited memory, is that so? ;-)



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Most annoying
Authored by: JayBee on May 15, '02 12:21:15PM

According to the man pages for hdiutil, -noforceclose is actually the default behaviour for hdiutil burn.

Which means the functionality isn't just built in to the system but Apple decided to TURN IT OFF for disk burner.

I can understand the desire to make closing disks the default (My mum wouldn't realise you have to close a disk before it'll play in a CD player, so fair enough - it's the way you "expect" it to work), but to not even implement a check box...

I smell fat, plain brown envelopes labelled "Toast Insurance" and covered in Steve Jobs's fingerprints...

;-)



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TOAST
Authored by: kerim on May 15, '02 08:36:54AM

Toast creates multisession CDs with the option to "import session" so you don't need to have multiple volumes - all your sessions can be stored as a single volume. Toast also does a lot more, including formatting CDs that can be read by a PC, burning Audio CDs faster than iTunes, etc. It is well worth the price.



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TOAST
Authored by: gvitale on May 15, '02 12:34:29PM

Hi Kerim,
thanks for the tip, but at the best of my understanding Toast does this only with ISO9660 FS, is that so?



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TOAST
Authored by: georgemp on May 15, '02 01:58:22PM

as gvitale said Toast creates multisession discs only with ISO9660 Cd's. For HFS+ it creates multivolume CD's same as this utility.



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TOAST
Authored by: kkeusch on May 15, '02 02:30:12PM

I cannot find "import session" in TOAST. on Mac OS 10.1.4. Can you help me!!!!!!



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TOAST
Authored by: kerim on May 16, '02 11:36:54AM

To use import session, you need to select OTHER --> ISO9660 --> SELECT ---> then in the pop-up window there is a button on the bottom right, labled "session". Click that and you will see the option for import session. It is true that this only works with ISO9660, but ISO9660 is good for cross-platform compatibility, and if you set it to allow for "Macintosh Names" (under settings, and which more recent versions of Windows can also read) then I don't really see any difference between ISO9660 and HFS+ in terms of my daily use. That is, I have never not been able to do something because a CD was burned in ISo9660 instead of HFS+.



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Give us GUI
Authored by: MtnBiker on May 15, '02 08:00:05PM

I agree with Rob. I'm a Mac user to avoid command lines. It's too easy to forget the commands and it takes time to look them up. A GUI interface can help with that.

I've subscribed to this page (and sent money) because Rob tells us about the GUI programs and balances it with command line info. I don't mind knowing what is going on and talking about command line helps with that. But please don't make me learn the command to move a file. I'd much prefer to open the two folders (old and new) and drag the file over. It makes more sense to me. I probably could learn to do that, but the other hundreds of things I do with GUI I would have trouble with.

Getting down off my soapbox.



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CD Session Burner
Authored by: chaumontbay on Jan 29, '03 11:58:35AM

I tried it today with 10.2.3 and it seemed to work just fine. From my limited experience, it won't mount a CD and let you burn to it. But if you set it up and then click "burn" it will ask you to insert a disc and complete the task on its own, even if it's a previously named volume with data already burned to it. I believe that's covered in the "read me" though. Not a bad little app for $17.



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Multiple-Session CD's.
Authored by: georgepratt on Jan 29, '03 03:37:27PM

In the new MacWorld the "tip of the Month" states:
"New in OSX 10.2 is the ability to burn multiple-session CDs. Here's how to make use of this feature:
Launch the Disk Copy application (found in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder) and select New from Disk Copy's File menu to create a new image (a blank image, an image that mirrors a device, or an image from a folder or volume). Once you've created the image, select Burn Image from the File menu. In the After Burning section of the resulting Burn Disc window, make sure the Allow Additional Burns option is selected. Click on the Burn button to burn the contents of the image to the CD.
Repeat this procedure to burn additional images to the disc. Each session will appear on the desktop as a separate CD." This was sent in by Ronald C.F.Antony, Providence, Rhode Island.



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Create multi-session CD-Rs in OS X
Authored by: zigangpan2002 on May 11, '09 06:06:17AM

This hint have been quite old. Is there anything similar for OSX 10.5?



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