Why can't my iMac read photos from a CD?

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Level 1

122 points

Why can't my iMac read photos from a CD?

My current Mac is a 2019 (Intel) iMac running MacOS Ventura 13.4.1. I have an Apple DVD/CD drive attached to the iMac and it can play DVDs etc. Some time ago (2005 and earlier), I burned both DVDs and CDs with photos (mostly JPEGs) on them using various Macs running earlier versions of the OS.

When I try to read many of these CDs, the iMac reports that the CD is unreadable. If I switch to Windows 10, using Parallels, I find that I can easily acquire all the data on the CD and indeed can transfer it to the Mac. From this it's evident that the discs themselves are not defective.

What's going on? Can anyone say which disc formats have become unreadable and why?

Posted on Aug 17, 2023 11:32 AM

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Answer 1

ku4hx

Level 7

21,359 points

Aug 17, 2023 12:58 PM in response to Living Fossil

Not really, but every not optical drive is capable of reading every optical disk.

It all depends on so many factors. Things such a CD region requirements, disk format, what drive it was created on, and so forth and so on. Reasons like these are why so many apps are no longer on optical disk opting for digital downloads. They are basically old tech and sometimes their use is problematic.

You Apple drive may be dirty and in need of having the little laser source cleaned. Or it could be defective; we've had one Apple optical drive fail with a disk stuck inside.

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Answer 2

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

122 points

Aug 17, 2023 1:29 PM in response to ku4hx

Thanks for the reply. I'm convinced the Apple drive is fine, since as soon as it is connected to the Windows driver it works without any problems. I think that there's some issue with formats, maybe (I need to check) only if the JPEGs were burned onto a DVD: certainly some of the CDs work.

Overall, there is a general question of the safest way to archive one's digital assets. Optical discs used to be a good solution, and before that other disk formats used over a SCSI interface (now completely dead!). I don't know what I should do in the future. Meanwhile my original question remains.

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Answer 3

ku4hx

Level 7

21,359 points

Aug 17, 2023 1:43 PM in response to Living Fossil

There are archival quality CDs, but the problem is how do you read them in 100 years if at all? The same can be said for HDDs and SSDs. Who knows what media will be next ... crystal lattice storage maybe?

The one thing that seems to work, and that's a bit of a hassle, to put the data on whatever media you choose and create new copies old.

Think about the music that was on 8 track tapes and cassettes. At one time, each was the newest thing

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Answer 4

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,098 points

Aug 17, 2023 1:54 PM in response to Living Fossil

Disks that old written from a Mac may be in the original HFS format. Mojave was the last OS that could read this disk type. After that, disks must be at least HFS+ (Mac OS Extended).

I presume the disks were written as dual Mac/Windows format, which is why the Windows computer can access them. But the newer Mac ignores the Windows option since it can see a Mac format, though one it can't access and declares it unreadable.

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Answer 5

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

122 points

Aug 18, 2023 2:26 PM in response to Kurt Lang

I've looked at these disks more closely. The problematic ones are all Kodak Recordable CDs. The format is not recognised by Apple's disk utility, although that program can 'see' the disk.

I have other CDs with the same sort of data (JPEGs), which were generic recordable ones. They appear to be in ISO 9660 (Joliet) format. I don't think these are any newer than the ones that don't work. At no time did I consciously record the CDs in a format that was supposed to work on Windows as well as Mac - I just used the "burn" function in the Finder.

I guess there is no real answer to this, but I wonder if there is any info from Apple about why this change has happened.

I suppose I must now back up to some form of cyberspace, despite cost and lack of ultimate control. I wonder what folks with really secure data do.

Anyway thanks to all who replied.

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Answer 6

★ Helpful

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,098 points

Aug 18, 2023 2:45 PM in response to Living Fossil

I don't know how many you have to do, but the fastest option may be to transfer the images from the Kodak disks onto a flash drive via Windows.

Purchase a large flash drive. However big you need. 64 GB, 128 GB. Or a couple of them. Format the flash drive(s) as ExFAT. This format can be read/write on both Mac and Windows without the need for any special software.

Plug the flash drive into the Windows computer and then put in a CD. Directly copy the images on the CD to the flash drive. Repeat until all images from the problem disks are on the flash drive.

Back on the Mac, you can then copy all of the images on the flash drive to another external drive so you have a redundant backup.

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Answer 7

★ Helpful

Old Toad

Level 10

205,094 points

Aug 18, 2023 3:17 PM in response to Living Fossil

You need to try the CD in another optical drive with your Mac and then with another Mac. If the CD can't be read on another Mac with your drive try another drive. If it can be read in the other drive try that drive on your iMac. This will tell us if it's the CD, drive or your Mac that's the problem.

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Answer 8

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

122 points

Aug 20, 2023 4:31 AM in response to Old Toad

Sensible advice as ever, Old Toad. Right now I don't have all those options. All I have is an old Mac laptop (2013 or thereabouts) that can only run Big Sur, a newish MacBook Pro (Apple Silicon) and the one Superdrive. I tried this device on the old machine, and it behaves a bit differently, in that the CD doesn't show up as unreadable - in fact it doesn't show up at all! However, the Apple disk utility can see the CD and its partitions but it can't mount it, so no go. Incidentally, the utility identifies the disk as a CD-ROM, a format I know that Macs can no longer read.

Trying it on the MacBook Pro, usual report that disk is unreadable on this machine, but works perfectly on Windows 11 on Parallels (Windows 10 not valid for Apple Silicon using Parallels).

I still conclude that the Superdrive is perfectly OK, but the MacOS is refusing the format.

When these CDs were burned, there didn't seem to be different formats on offer. All recordable CDs worked, and recordable DVDs too. So it seemed at the time that there was just one standard for recordable CDs, but perhaps in some way there wasn't. It would be nice to hear something from Apple about this.

As a final gesture, I am planning to burn a new CD with JPEGs on my current computers and see if that generates any problems.

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Why can't my iMac read photos from a CD?

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