How to burn read and write files on DVD

To Apple Discussions!




"I am burning with Finder and have tried with Toast 10 Titanium."

Use Disk Utility to burn.



"I would like to know how to burn DVDs (image files) with the Read and Write setting."

Use Disk Utility Help. Open same up.
At the bottom left of the window, click on the purple button w/the "?" in the middle.
This will bring up the Help Menu.


You can also do a search in Apple's Knowledge Base.
http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=search

CDs & DVDs are by nature Read only, no matter what Permissions files may or may not have.

There are Re-writable CDs & DVDs, (cd-+RW, DVD+RW, etc.), but since nobody has agreed on a "standard" for that yet/still, the can only be Erased & start over.

When you copy files from a DVD to a Mac, the files are newly created on the Mac. Newly created files get the default set of OS X permissions, which are read+write for the user who created them (in this case, the user who copied them from the DVD), and read only for group and others. That's what you are always going to get; it doesn't matter what the permissions may have been on the files at the time the DVD was burned.

If you want to copy files from a DVD and have them automatically granted read+write access for group and others, you can set up a target folder for them and put an ACL on it. Post back if you need more help on how to set it up.

when I burn the DVD and try and copy the files back onto the hard drive (to test if it works or not) it won't allow me

What did you mean by this? Are you not able to copy the files back at all, or can you copy them back OK but find that their permissions were altered?

An ACL is a special set of file/folder permissions that override the standard UNIX permissions. Custom ACLs can be set on files/folders.

But after reading your latest post I don't think this will solve the problem. If I understand correctly, you are burning files to a DVD, giving the DVD to a graphic designer, and the graphic designer is having trouble copying the files from the DVD to his computer. Is that correct? Is his computer a Mac? Exactly what error message is he getting when he tries to copy the files from the DVD?

Kiraly, I agree that the actual problem here might be something else, but as a side issue there seems to be a difference in the way permissions are handled when a file copy is made using Finder compared to when the copy is made using the cp copy in Terminal. At least in my Tiger system, Finder preserved the permission structure, though not the ownership, when it copied a file, whereas cp used the OS defaults.

I tried the following experiment:

From my test user account "t", I created a textfile named ReadWrite.txt, and gave it Read+Write permissions for Owner, Group, and Others. I then burned it using Finder to a DVD which I named PermissionTest, and then unchecked the "Ignore Ownership" box on PermissionTest.

The original ownership and permissions were preserved on the DVD, though of course you couldn't actually write to anything there:
-------------------
xxG5-Computer:~ t$ ls -l /Volumes/PermissionTest/ReadWrite.txt
-rw-rw-rw- 1 t t 15 Sep 13 18:25 /Volumes/PermissionTest/ReadWrite.txt
-----------------

I then copied the file from the DVD to the Desktop using Finder, and the permissions were preserved!

Finder copy:
-------------------------
xxG5-Computer:~ t$ ls -l /Users/t/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
-rw-rw-rw- 1 t t 15 Sep 13 18:25 /Users/t/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
------------------------------------

I then trashed the Finder copy of ReadWrite,txt on the desktop, and made a second copy from the DVD, but this time I used the cp command from Terminal instead of using Finder. This time the permissions were not preserved, but reverted to the OS default:

cp copy:
------------------------------------
xxG5-Computer:~ t$ cp /Volumes/PermissionTest/ReadWrite.txt Desktop
xxG5-Computer:~ t$ ls -l /Users/t/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 t t 15 Sep 13 19:43 /Users/t/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
------------------------------------


I then switched to a different user account "t1", and repeated the above with the same DVD, first copying the ReadWrite.txt file to the desktop using Finder, and then using cp. The ownership of the copied file changed from t to t1 in both cases, but the permission structure again was preserved in the Finder copy but not in the cp copy:

DVD file:
-------------------------
xxG5-Computer:~ t1$ ls -l /Volumes/PermissionTest/ReadWrite.txt
-rw-rw-rw- 1 t t 15 Sep 13 18:25 /Volumes/PermissionTest/ReadWrite.txt
-----------------------------

Finder copy:
---------------------------
xxG5-Computer:~ t1$ ls -l /Users/t1/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
-rw-rw-rw- 1 t1 t1 15 Sep 13 18:25 /Users/t1/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
---------------------

cp copy:
------------------------
xxG5-Computer:~ t1$ cp /Volumes/PermissionTest/ReadWrite.txt Desktop
xxG5-Computer:~ t1$ ls -l /Users/t1/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 t1 t1 15 Sep 13 19:51 /Users/t1/Desktop/ReadWrite.txt
-----------------------------

I got similar results when I tried copying a file with Read+Write permissions for all from a USB flash drive to the Desktop, again with the "Ignore Ownership" box unchecked.

Your graphic designer is doing something wrong. He doesn't seem to know what he is talking about. "...version of the disks which are set to read and write" just doesn't apply to DVDs. Ask him exactly what error message he is getting when he tries to copy them to his Mac.

when I burn the DVD and try and copy the files back onto the hard drive (to test if it works or not) it won't allow me

I have transfered the files onto a PC without any problems and I tried a colleague's new Mac Book Pro which wouldn't let me copy the files onto the hard drive.

So several Macs, including your own, are all unable to copy the files off the DVD - is that right?

When you do try to drag a file off a DVD that has been successfully burned, do you get an error message or do you instead get a cursor with a white "prohibit" sign on it, such as:

!http://www0.info.apple.com/images/kbase/25571/prohibited.gif!

If you do see this cursor, have you given your burned DVDs *a very long name* ?? If so, see

*Unable to copy or move files from volume that has a long name*
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2053

If the current name is long, you can't rename a DVD, so you would have to burn a new one with a shorter name. You don't need a DVD-RW for this. If you decide to try this, restart before you do so.

Glad that worked! 🙂

Weird

Yes, and it can get even weirder! Be sure to throw away all "bad" DVDs - they can temporarily mess up your system further. After Finder fails to copy from a volume with a very long name, it can become temporarily "poisoned" such that it won't then copy from any DVD or external drive, long name or not! Logging out and then logging back in will revive Finder if that happens.