Cdrdao with External Optical Drives

Question

My favorite cd bit-for-bit backup utility is the old command line standby, cdrdao, available from MacPorts and equivalents (sudo port selfupdate ; sudo port install cdrdao). These days none of my devices has an optical drive, and all my notes for running cdrdao failed to work for external drives -- there is no device "IODVDServices". In case this is useful to others, here's my updated notes for running cdrdao on an OS X external drive, in this case a BD-RW drive hooked up via firewire.
First, make sure the optical disk is dismounted:
$ df
$ sudo umount /dev/disk1
The old, internal drive, cd read command looks like these:
$ cdrdao read-cd --device IODVDServices --driver generic-mmc --with-cddb  --datafile test.dat test.toc
$ cdrdao read-cd --with-cddb --datafile test.dat test.toc
You can use the shorter second command if you create a ~/.cdrdao file with these lines:
read_device: "IODVDServices"
write_device: "IODVDServices"
read_driver: "generic-mmc"
write_driver: "generic-mmc:0x00000010"
write_speed: 4
cddb_timeout: 30
cddb_directory: "~/.cdrdao-cddb"
The old internal drive write command is:
$ sudo cdrdao write  --eject test.toc
To update this for external drives, run the command
$ cdrdao scanbus
and use the verbatim output up to the colon. In my case, it's the very lengthy "IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP03@E/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FW BR@0/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FRWR@0/AppleFWOHCI/IOFireWireController/IOFireWireDevice@d0 4b630a031199/IOFireWireUnit/IOFireWireSBP2Target/IOFireWireSBP2LUN/com_apple_dri ver_Oxford_Semi_FW934_DSA/IOSCSIPeripheralDeviceNub/IOSCSIPeripheralDeviceType05 /IOBDServices". Just replace the string "IODVDServices" everywhere it appears above with this device name for the external drive and you'll have a working cdrdao executable.

Answer 1

Thanks! "cdrdao scanbus" output was just what I needed to get cdrdao working with my FireWire Blu-ray burner.