Creating x-platform .img or .iso CD image (ISO 9660 CD-ROM - not CD-ROM XA)

Hello,

Is it possible to create an ISO 9660 CD-ROM .img or .iso file using DropDMG that when burnt to CD media on a Windows machine will restore the resource forks when opened on a Mac (i.e. the file icons show a mini preview of the document contents).

[Background info…]

We are automating the process of burning PDF’s to CD.

We’ve got a web based image library that has a button on a screen called [Burn CD]. This sends a message to a back-end Mac OS9 app that uses AppleScript to tell Toast 5 to create an ISO 9660 .img file on a networked Windows machine which is then picked up by an automated Windows-based CD burning robot to burn and label the CD.

The CD can be opened on Windows perfectly and on a Mac the PDF files must be retaining the resource fork because the file icons are previews of the file contents - which is what is expected from our Mac clients.

I am now trying to upgrade this OS9 system to a new faster Mac running OSX and initially was going to use Toast 8…

BUT having stumbled across DropDMG that can be invoked from the Command line I’m hoping to use this as a solution because I don’t like AppleScript and DropDMG appears to use much less resources and fingers crossed will do just the job I want without too much fuss.

/…Background info]

(I’m not sure what the .cdr image is all about in DropDMG as Nero doesn’t understand it and fileinfo.net says it’s a Corel Draw or an iTunes audio file: http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/cdr)

I’m in a test environment using Nero on Windows to manually burn the CD images for testing and I’m told the CD Robot understands .img and .iso files.

I’ve tried the 3 .img Formats using the DropDMG interface and dragging a folder on it to burn an .img file seems ok on a Mac when remounting it. The icons appear ok, etc… on a mac…

I then copy the .img file onto my networked Windows machine and try to open it as an Image file to burn using Nero but I’m getting the following error…


Foreign Image File

The entered block size does not correspond to the image length. The block size may be wrong. Do you want to correct the value or ignore the problem?

I’ve tried creating an .iso image using Toast 8 on the Mac and the same problem happened until I changed the ISO 9660 Format to CD-ROM and NOT CD-ROM XA.

Is there a way of creating an ISO 9660 CD-ROM .img or .iso file using DropDMG? I’m guessing this is the solution I need? Perhaps I can do this using the command line?

If anyone can shed any light on my problem, that’ll be great…

Thanks,
Nick

DropDMG does not currently create images with an ISO filesystem, however it can create images that can be burned using Windows. You don’t want .img because that’s the OS 9 format that uses resource forks for the image itself. If you create a .cdr image with DropDMG and rename it to .iso, it should match what your Windows software is expecting.

Thanks for the reply… funny you say that… I read that on this forum as well: http://www.slashdotdash.net/articles/2006/08/14/create-iso-cd-dvd-image-with-mac-os-x-tiger-10-4

The image opened OK in Nero and burnt fine to a CD but when attempting to open the CD it says there is nothing on the disk. When trying to open the Disk in a CD/DVD drive it says the disk is corrupt but when inserting the CD into a CD/DVD-R/RW drive it opens but shows zero files.

It opens fine on a Mac and as expected.

I’m guessing it doesn’t work on Windows because DropDMG doesn’t support an ISO filesystem… Do you have plans to support this?

Thanks,
Nick

Right, because Windows doesn’t support the HFS filesystem.

Yes.

DropDMG 3.0 adds support for hybrid .iso disk images.