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Windows CDs do not mount under Ventura OS

I have an external CD/DVD drive connected via USB to a Mac running Ventura OS.

If I insert a CD in a Mac format it is immediately mounted.

When inserting a CD formatted for a Windows PC (for instance medical X-ray report disks) the drive spins, spins, spins forever and does not mount. It does not even show up in Disk Utility.

But...

If I run a virtual Windows under VirtualBox the disk is recognized and mounted.


Is there any strategy to mount Windows CDs directly under Ventura?


iMac 24″, macOS 13.0

Posted on Dec 17, 2024 9:06 AM

Reply
5 replies

Dec 18, 2024 1:02 AM in response to g_wolfman

g_wolfman wrote:

As KiltedTim indicates, there is no difference - specifically there's no such thing as a "Mac formatted" or "Windows formatted" CD. There is only one CD data format, ISO-9660.


Macs used to offer the option to format CDs using either Mac format or hybrid format.


If I remember correctly, Mac-formatted discs used HFS (no "+"). The hybrid discs probably contained both HFS and ISO 9660 filesystems pointing to the same data.


Catalina removed all support for HFS (no "+") and reportedly, if you try to use either a HFS CD or a hybrid CD on a modern Mac, the Mac will see the HFS filesystem, choke on it, and reject the disc even if it is a hybrid disc, where the Mac theoretically could still read the data using the "PC" (ISO-9660?) filesystem.


This doesn't sound like the OP's problem. If the OP was running into this, the Mac would likely just reject the discs instead of spinning them forever without mounting them.

Windows CDs do not mount under Ventura OS

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