Multisession CD/DVD burning

With disk utility open, when I select burn, the dialog window opens but the leave disk appendable box is grayed out. I've checked the DU help, but can't seem to get help there. Anyone with suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Am I correct to assume you are seeing this with a DVD? Multisession DVD burning is not supported in OS X. It works with CDs only.

Similar Messages

Multisession data DVD burned on windows don't show the folders on Mac.

Hi,
I think that is a well discussed thread but I weren't able to find anything at this concern on google and this forum.
I've burned a multisession data DVD on Nero (windows XP). That DVD already have files burned and is multisession. After burn it, the folder that I'd copied on PC don't show up on Mac. Is there a way to burn that files on windows that can be recognised on a Mac? Is this a question of burn format? The parameters of copy on Nero was keep as default.
Thanks in advance.

It seems like Mac OS X doesn't support multisession-burnt DVDs, no matter how you put them together. In the best case, you'll only be able to see the first session. Finalizing DVDs has no impact on Mac OS X ability to read them completely.
I learnt it the hard way when switching from Ubuntu to Mac OS X, while on the first, Nero-burnt DVDs would read flawlessly, finalized or not. I ended up being forced to burn back around 120 DVDs in one session in Nero.
So far, Apple doesn't seem to have any plan in supporting multisession DVD burning and reading in OS X. As they have a tendancy to ditch obsolete technology sooner than others, I wouldn't hold my breath on it. On a personal level, this lack of support has made my hard drive space needs skyrocket, as I'm no longer able to incrementally burn DVDs, as I always did in Windows and Ubuntu.
Hope that helps.

Prebuy Ques: External DVD - Burner Burn Time?

I have a ton of files on CDs & ZIP disks. They take up a LOT of physical space. I want to categorize and burn them to DVD's so I can discard the ZIP disks, wipe most off my external LaCie HD and regain some storage space.
I've read several comments here about oh-so-slow DVD burning times.
So I have several related questions. I have a LaCie Burner on Order.
It comes with Toast.
Must a DVD be burnt in one session?
Or is multi-session burning possible?
Hopw much free space do I need when burning DVDs?
How long does it take to burn a DVD given my system's configuration?
Thanks in advance for responses.

1. If you buy DVD-R or DVD-RW media, yes. DVD-R media doesn't support multisession burning.
3. If you're using the Finder, you may need up to 9.4GB available on your hard disk to burn a DVD. Toast has a lower requirement.
4. As long as the DVD burner is connected through FireWire and you're burning a data DVD, you can burn a DVD in approximately one or two hours. Burning a DVD over the USB port on your machine will take much longer(and may not be possible at all), and trying to burn a video DVD will take several hours or days on a G3-based system.
(8815)

Creating a new library from a DVD Burn library

I have my entire library of photos on my iMac in iPhoto 6.0.6. I recently spent quite a bit of time cleaning up what had been a rather messy, unorganized, photo library. My organizational method consisted of consolidating old film rolls which were inherited from original imports that were in different folders by moving groups of photos into single "film rolls" for older years and making fewer rolls for the last few years. I then went back through and corrected photo dates for a bunch of images that were scanned in, etc. I downloaded Keyword Manager, which I like a lot, and applied keywords to every photo in my collection. I also deleted a bunch of old photos which were too similar to better shots or simply not worth keeping. Once I finished all of this I had my new library consisting of 1892 pictures, which I hoped to backup and allow to serve as a "gold master copy" of all of my photos to date. In browsing the database in Finder, I noted that there were a lot of images in the "Original" folders that were not in the library. Some of these were images I had deleted in the library. (I know better than to do anything through the finder other than browse. I know that to maintain integrity of the library it is necessary to only perform actions through iPhoto.) I did a database rebuild and asked iPhoto to recover orphaned files which did nothing. I really wanted this database to be in pristine condition since I was using it as my master copy, but could not figure out how to do away with old unwanted images in the "originals" folders. I went ahead and created a DVD library with "Share -> Burn", and voila, the new iPhoto Library that was created on the DVD appeared to be "clean" with only the 1892 pictures in my viewable library existing in the Originals folder. OK, so far so good. I then took the DVD I had burned and attempted to replicate my library on my iBook which had a clean install of iLife '06 on it. When I launched iPhoto with the DVD in place it showed me an empty hard drive library and the burned library from the DVD. At first I attempted to just copy individual Film Rolls from the DVD to the local library. While this worked in bring the images over, the keywords became all jumbled. The resulting photos would have keywords attached which did not belong to them and were different from what was on the DVD. I then deleted the iBook library and tried copying the entire iPhoto Library folder from the DVD to the iBook via the Finder. When I relaunched iPhoto, presto all the photos were in my local library with keywords, film rolls and other metadata intact. However in browsing the library I came across a few photos which would cause iPhoto to crash when I tried to edit them. This was a consistent behavior on specific images. Reading through the forums I came across the color profile bug and through testing verified that this was not the problem. Meanwhile back on the iMac I could edit the photos in question with no problem. I verified that the image had not been corrupted during the DVD burn as well. The files are identical between the iMac and the iBook. I know this is a long drawn out post, but if anybody has read this far, here are my questions ...
1) What is the best way to go about creating a "clean" database with internal integrity after a doing a lot of edits and metadata changes? Shouldn't the burn to DVD do what I want?
2) How come when I copied subsets of my library over to a new machine from the DVD, the keywords seemed to get all jumbled? Is it a matter of indexing them? If I added all the keywords to an empty library before copying the images over, would it work? Is there not a way to just copy portions of a DVD library into another library?
3) Any ideas on the crash while attempting to edit problem? The image will load as a thumbnail, and then briefly flas the full size image, before iPhoto crashes and pops up a dialog asking if I want to restart it.
Thanks for staying with me!
Mark

Problems solved with iPhoto Manager's rebuild function! Thanks to Brian Webster of Fat Cat Software. Great program!
Mark

I just bought a new mac mini and an external DVD burner. I want to burn a DVD video and it will not play on the TV but only on the computer? Need this figured out for tomorrow.

I just bought a new mac mini and an external DVD burner. I want to burn a DVD video and it will not play on the TV but only on the computer? Need this figured out for tomorrow. Can anyone help me?

Congratulations on the new Mini. Are you saying you tried burning and it does not play, or do you want to burn it only for the computer to be able to play it?
OS X Mountain Lion: Burn a CD or DVD may help.

DVD Burn problem. "Device error - the target device isn't suitable for use"

Hello everyone,
I initially had a lot of problems with PE8. However the nVidia driver update solved most of them.
Just thought it was important to report success as well as failure!
However one problem remains. I get the following error at the 96% mark while burning. "Device error - the target device isn't suitable for use". It is always at the 96% mark and the program is "compiling [something]" when this happens.
Having searched this site I notice that user rgferg posted a similar problem 13 days ago but was redirected to repost in a different place, but never did.
I have tried to burn a 1hr clip 4 times and every time I have selected the slower burn speed (8MB/s) as has been suggested. It seems that inferior media is a culprit, so I have bought some [quality] Verbatim DVD-R media to try in my Phillips SATA optical drive. I am sceptical this will work, but open minded nonetheless. I will give it a whirl when my computer has stopped capturing the VHS I am working on.
Each time the burn failed the disk was automatically ejected and the burn process had actually started and progressed perhaps ~40% or so.
This indicates to me that it is a drive sharing issue, rather than a media issue. Somewhere on this forum it suggests that I go through a 20+ step process and delete/disable every piece of software that can compete with Premiere among other things. IF I do this what do I burn with outside of Adobe? Do I have to get imgburn or whatever it was called? What if I like Nero? Nero 6 has worked great for me for 3 years.
So given I am willing to uninstall my old optical drive burning software, who out there can recommened commercial software that for them creates a painless Adobe burning experience with no errors or conflicts? Perhaps there is another solution that I did not see on this forum?
I am running Windows XP SP3. I have the latest nVidia drivers for my SLI GeForce 7600 GS cards. I have 3 monitors. RAID 0 SATA, 2GB RAM, Athlon X2 5400.
Justin.

OK been working through the list of 20 things Adobe recommends to fix DVD burn error. No luck yet:
system meets minimum requirements
Project size does not exceed disk capacity
successfully burned project to DVD folder -thus skip to step 8.
8. Using new blank media for burning
9. Try different media and DVD burners. Bought Verbatim DVD-R. Don't have another DVD burner. Adobe's supported burner list is VERY short, so of course mine is not on it.
10. Uninstalled Nero 6. Did NOT uninstall Acronis True Image workstation or Lightscribe. These do not access the drive unless I say so!
11. Have not yet disabled startup items and services. This will take a lot of work and will leave to last. Deactivated Spybot thus far.....
12. Disabled IMAPI CD burning COM
13. DMA if available already set. Haven't set this in BIOS yet. I already think it is, but will check next boot.
14. Updated DVD firmware
15. Already updated nVidia drivers
16. Don't have any other DVD drives to disconnect.
17. MPEG workaround. Will resort to if required.
18. Disable Autoplay? XP only has "prompt me each time to choose an action". I have set this for ALL file types.
19. Have NOT refreshed the DVD drivers in the registry. This step involves uninstalling PE8. Will leave this as last resort.
20. Visit forums to see if other have the same problem. Hi guys
So still working through some of the items above.
Can anyone direct me to advice on how to write the encoded files sent to the hard drive, or the VOB files that PE8 failed to burn to a disk? Will the former work with DVD menus?
What a process.
Stay tuned.
Justin.

Problems ripping with an external DVD Burner

Hello Everyone,
Recently I purchased a Liteon External DVD Burner off of newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106011) -- It's a Liteon SHW-1635SX -- I bought this because the DVD-ROM drive thats in my tower natively is REALLY slow and I wanted to get a new one that I could use with a laptop that I`m going to purchase in the future. Whenever I try to rip a CD into iTunes using the burner, It says that it's ripping the disk, however it doesn't spin up the cd and it takes about 2 seconds to "rip" all the songs. I know this drive is soposed to be faster than my old one, But two seconds is a little TOO fast. Plus, I know that it's not copying the songs because when I try to listen to them in my library, the song won't play. (Under time it says "789:54..." for all the songs on the cd, in my library) However, the burner rips perfectly in Windows Media Player... Is this perhaps some kind of glitch with iTunes??? Basicly, the only way I can rip a CD into iTunes is to use my old DVDROM drive, but that defeats the purpose... below is the CD Diagnostic log that I got from iTunes::::::::
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
HP Pavilion 05 P9859A-ABA 533w
iTunes 6.0.4.2
CD Driver 2.0.4.3
CD Driver DLL 2.0.3.2
LowerFilters: PxHelp20 (2.0.0.0), AFS2K (3.1.21.0), DRVMCDB (1.0.0.1), SSCDBHK5 (1.0.0.1), PFC (2.5.0.196),
UpperFilters: GEARAspiWDM (2.0.4.3),
Video Driver: Intel(R) 82845G/GL Graphics Controller\Intel(R) 82845G/GL Graphics Controller
IDE\DiskMaxtor4R060J0_________________________RAMB1TU0, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [0,0]
IDE\DiskST34323A_______________________________3.02___, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [1,0]
IDE\CdRomCOMBIRW16x10/DVD_______________________H1.0___, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [0,0]
USBSTOR\CdRomLITE-ONDVDRW_SHW-1635SYS0Y, Bus Type USB
If you have multiple drives on the same IDE or SCSI bus, these drives may interfere with each other.
Some computers need an update to the ATA or IDE bus driver, or Intel chipset. If iTunes has problems recognizing CDs or hanging or crashing while importing or burning CDs, check the support site for the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard.
Check the Windows Update website to verify that you have the latest service packs and patches for your OS. Service packs affect the performance of USB and firewire CD / DVD drives.
Current user is administrator.
E: COMBI RW16x10/DVD, Rev H1.0
Drive is empty.
F: LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-1635S, Rev YS0Y
Audio CD in drive.
Found 9 songs on CD, playing time 42:13 on Audio CD.
Track 1, start time 00:02:00
Track 2, start time 03:30:07
Track 3, start time 08:44:33
Track 4, start time 12:03:74
Track 5, start time 17:55:53
Track 6, start time 22:14:31
Track 7, start time 25:32:60
Track 8, start time 30:13:01
Track 9, start time 35:59:06
Audio CD reading succeeded.
Get drive speed succeeded.
The drive CDR speeds are: 8 16 24 32 40 48.
The drive CDRW speeds are: 8.
The drive DVDR speeds are: 8.
The drive DVDRW speeds are: 8.
The last failed audio CD burn had error code -128(0xffffff80). It happened on drive E: COMBI RW16x10/DVD on -128(0xffffff80) media at speed 0X.
Your replies are greatly appretiated!
--Aric--

hi Aric!
hmmm. we'd better check on the usual suspects with that. (the incredibly long song times can also be associated with these sorts of causes.)
You can't import or play music from an audio CD in iTunes for Windows
... and the following resources might be helpful with that. (check on firmware and drivers even though it's a brand new unit.)
Using CD Diagnostics in iTunes for Windows to troubleshoot CD/DVD drive issues
iTunes for Windows: Updating the firmware on your CD or DVD drive
Updating the drivers on your Windows PC
Where to find firmware for your CD/DVD drive
love, b

My DVD burning problems solved....here's what I did.

Like some of you, I was having MAJOR problems burning DVDs. My initial setup was a dual 2.0 ghz G5 purchased in July of last year, so it came with a 8x burner and iLife '04 (iMovie 4.0.1 and iDVD 4.0.1). Seeing as how I have 1.5gigs RAM and a fairly new system running 10.4.3, I didn't think I was going to have any problems burning DVDs....
HA.
Nothing worked right......a 1-hour long project burned for more than 8 hours without finishing, or iDVD would quit for no reason, or the burn would fail. I noticed that Terminal said that during these burns it was only burning at 4x even though 47x was requested. Chapters were not working. Applecare was not helpful, only suggesting that I try to burn under a new user, and then call them back. That didn't work either.
I probably took the lazy man's way out, but I decided this waste of time was unacceptable. I went out and purchased a 16x SuperDrive Pioneer DVR-110D replacement from MCE for $92, and upgraded to iLife '05 for another $79. I installed the drive myself (VERY easy with the included instructions), and tried the new setup under a newly created user.....
PERFECT burning every time. Not only that, but Terminal showed a requested burn speed of 16x and a burn speed of 16x. A two-hour project is now burning in less than 8 minutes. Multiplexing still takes time, but it's less than 1 hour!
On an interesting side note: when I try to burn under my regular user name, I STILL get an burning error (says image not complete, or incomplete....something like that). But under the user name created just for burning I have no problems. The chapter problem was solved when I stopped putting a chapter marker at the very beginning of my iMovie projects, since iDVD automatically puts one in called "Beginning," which you can change to anything you want.
Maybe this will help others.....
Dual 2Ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 1.5 gigs RAM, iMovie 5.0.1, iDVD 5.0.1

it was only burning at 4x even though 47x was requested.
That's a issue discussed in the past.
It turns out that 8X DVD burning means about 47X CD burning - you were requesting 8X DVD but only got 4X DVD burning.
I haven't seen it discussed anymore so maybe Apple got around to eliminating that 'quirk' in terminology.
I suspect some of the early 8x DVD burners didn't perform as advertised. I'm glad your new 16X burner is working for you.

ITunes Seem to Have Suddenly Stopped Communicating With the CD/DVD Burner

Hello, I wonder if anybody can help - my itunes application seems to have suddenly stopped communicating with my laptop's cd/dvd burner
(Generic Name (E: H - T-S D D A S - 20N ATA Device)).
About 2 years ago, I have experienced a similar problem, but was able to resolve it by downloading 64-bit compatible GEAR drivers to my system. However, the problem has re-appeared when I have updated to iTunes Version 10.1. Funny enough, the cd/dvd burner started getting recognized again when I updated to iTunes Version 10.2, but halfway through me burning a large playlist to multiple cds has suddenly stopped recognizing the cd/dvd burner again, and has never "resolved itself" ever since.
I have tried multiple approaches to solving this issue, including completely re-installing itunes software and completely re-installing GEAR drivers, but nothing works. I have even tried uninstalling GEAR drivers completely, as I read that it worked for someone on one of the similar forums, but that didn't work either.
My itunes diagnostics runs all the points of the cd/dvd drive check successfully, except for the last point (Can Not Read Audio CD). Here's what the diagnostics summary looks like:
Microsoft Windows Vista x64 x64 Home Premium Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 6002)
Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv9700 Notebook PC
iTunes 10.2.1.1
QuickTime 7.6.9
FairPlay 1.11.16
Apple Application Support 1.5
iPod Updater Library 10.0d2
CD Driver 2.2.0.1
CD Driver DLL 2.1.1.1
Apple Mobile Device 3.4.0.25
Apple Mobile Device Driver not found.
Bonjour 2.0.4.0 (214.3)
Gracenote SDK 1.8.2.457
Gracenote MusicID 1.8.2.89
Gracenote Submit 1.8.2.123
Gracenote DSP 1.8.2.34
iTunes Serial Number 0016AB580A7B0C28
Current user is not an administrator.
The current local date and time is 2011-04-14 17:52:25.
iTunes is not running in safe mode.
WebKit accelerated compositing is enabled.
HDCP is not supported.
Core Media is supported.
Video Display Information
NVIDIA, NVIDIA GeForce 7150M / nForce 630M
** External Plug-ins Information **
No external plug-ins installed.
The drive F: Motorola MB810 Rev 0001 is a USB 2 device.
iPodService 10.2.1.1 (x64) is currently running.
iTunesHelper 10.2.1.1 is currently running.
Apple Mobile Device service 3.3.0.0 is currently running.
** CD/DVD Drive Tests **
No drivers in LowerFilters.
UpperFilters: GEARAspiWDM (2.2.0.1),
E: H-T-S DDA
S_-20N, Rev W_05
Audio CD in drive.
Found 1 songs on CD, playing time 255:08 on Audio CD.
Track 1, start time 00:02:00
Audio CD reading failed. Error Code: 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 0 0 0 0.
iTunes cannot play or import music from a CD in this drive. The drive may need a firmware update. Check with the manufacturer.
Get drive speed succeeded.
The drive CDR speeds are: 3 9 16 24.
The drive CDRW speeds are: 3.
The drive DVDR speeds are: 3.
The drive DVDRW speeds are: 3.
Error Correction is turned on for importing audio CDs.
I have noticed that the diagnostics summary containes a suggestion to update firmware of my laptop's cd/dvd drive, but currently there are no such firmware updates available.
Another frustrating issue that I ran into was trying to convey this issue to Apple Technical Support via e-mail using the Express Lane for the troubleshooting issues. I really fail to understand why I am being asked for the "hardware serial number" when I'm clearly choosing the categories for "iTunes/CD-DVD Import Issues" which are software, not hardware, categories! This prevents me from being able to simply send the description of my problem to the correct Apple Support department, and does not let me do that even when I enter my itunes' Serial Number, which can be found in the diagnostics summary provided above.
Much Thanks to anyone who can provide any kind of helpful advice, even if it's just on how to be able to convey this problem to Apple Support via e-mail!

Okay ... checking something else:
Current user is not an administrator
Is that true? Or do you in fact have a Windows user account with full administrative rights?
(It's possible that a permission may have gone astray in your usual user account, which might be causing the burning issues.)

Possible to install HD-DVD Burner in iMac G4?

Hi, I was wondering if it is at all possible to install HD-DVD burner in a iMac G4? Anyone tried this?

I know that Toast Titanium 8 for Mac supports Blu-Ray burning (Apple's loyalties are in the Blu-Ray not the HD DVD camp) but the G4 is not a processor I'd ever want to be encoding HD in. The G4 wouldn't even be up to playing discs. So I think you could do it with a Blu-Ray drive but you shouldn't do it. I hate having to wait whilst an SD DVD encodes HD is at least four times longer. Remember Apple hasn't put a HD spec burner in even it's 8-core Mac Pro yet!
mrtotes

Looking for a external blu ray dvd burner for my mac

looking for a external blu ray dvd burner for my mac

There are plenty of options but I have found that the LaCie d2 http://blu-ray.burnworld.com/burners/lacie-d2.htm works more consistantly. I use Toast 11 mainly for Blu-Ray. The drive does come with a basic verison of the software which is good for most but you need to upgrade to do some serious authoring.

DVD burn error message

I get this error message when I try to burn a data DVD: "Burning the disk failed because communication to the disk drive failed. (error code 0 x 80020022)
I am attempting to use the original drive system (Pioneer DVD-RW DVR 104) and it plays CD's and DVD's without a problem. Thoughts? Jim

just had this problem with a 17" MacPro purchased in Jan 09. Toast Titanium 9 had no problems burning the CD. tried it again in Finder but backed the burn speed down from 24x to 8x - no problem.
I can only assume it is cheap media causing the problem - we have no problems with Maxell CDs at full burn speed (24x). The CDs causing the problems are Verbatims (rated at 1-52x) that have printable surfaces.
hope this helps

G5 DVD burner error message? Help please?

I get this error message when I try burning a 1gb quicktime movie to dvd on my pre installed standard burner. Thanks in advance
the link below is a screenshot of the error
http://www.darkstargraphics.com/dvd_message.gif
Im at a loss and ready to by another
below is the dvd burner profile
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D:
Firmware Revision: A606
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2000 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: No

The error "internal target failure" appears on PCs using this drive as well, so it appears that it's not a Toast specific error.
However, in my browsing, no one seemed to be able to tell if it was a true hardware failure of the drive, or if it was caused by poor quality media.
I'd try other brands of media and a lens cleaner before flashing the firmware. And, if you do decide to flash the firmware, the current, official firmware for that drive is here. The link in MLCinma's post contains hacked (region free) firmware and is outdated in any event.
Let us know what brand of media you're using and what speed you're burning at.
The DVR-106D has had lots of reports of failures, so it could very well be the drive. At least a replacement DVR-111D will only cost you about $40 - $50.

DVD burner not recognized in Leopard by iDVD 7.0.1

Not exactly the same problem I found in my searches, so made a new topic.
Setup: G4 tower, dual Giga Design 1.8 GHZ, 1.5 MB RAM, Pioneer 109 burner.
System Profiler shows ability to burner everything including +r DL.
I had to use a 3rd party hack to get iMovie 7.1 installed. Leopard did not recognize my 1.8 processor as legitimate. It would recognize it if downgraded to 1.7 GHZ, but I chose not to do so. iMovie 7.1 (iLife 08) now launches and works, but I used iMovie HD to make this project.
1. I have burned other DVDs in Leopard with this DVD burner successfully, including a usable (proven) backup of my Tiger and Leopard DVDs, both DL.
2. I have over 100 GB space available on my Startup drive as well as 80 GB on another internal drive that is storing the iMovie project. The imovie project in question is 15 GB.
3. After creating the project in iMovie HD, I exported ("shared") to iDVD 7.0.1, chose a built-in theme and started the burn process. All was going well, so I went to bed. G4 set never to sleep for this project.
4. Next AM found that "error - .... disk not burned due to burner not recognized (error xxxxx). Didn't get the exact error number, but the iDVD project, when saved to Desktop was only 137 MB. The iMovie HD project is 15 GB, so iDVD should have created a project about 3 + GB.
5. Have NOT tried Apple Hardware test. Doesn't make sense to do so when the burner works fine in Leopard for other projects.
Is this problem due to iDVD 7.0.1 failing to be compatible with my G4 configuration like iMovie 7.1? Got no warning when installing or launching iDVD from iLife 08.
Any suggestions? I hope I've given enough useful info.
Incidentally, I'm not in a corner, as I copied the iMovie Hd project to a fW drive, and then used iDVD 7.0.1 on my MB Core Duo to render and burn it. Just want to find out what the problem is with my G4.

I'll try that. It may work as it is not iDVD making the determination if the optical drive is "qualified" but DU. As I said in my original post, I have burned DVDs in this internal burner using Leopard and a Finder Burn Folder. It is only iDVD that is between me and success.
I did manage to get the iMovie HD project burned using iDVD 7 on my Intel iMac. I will try editing another iMovie HD project, exporting to iDVD7, and saving as a disk image to a FW drive. I will report back the results, but it may be a day or two before that happens.
I should also probably try the same routine that failed on the chance that it was just a fluke.

ITunes Backup trying to burn to wrong DVD burner

My MacBook Pro has a built-in DVD writer (which I have not had success using lately) and I also just purchased a Samsung SE-S084D External USB DVD Writer, because of my trouble burning DVDs with the internal drive.
I've got the Samsung burner connected and when I insert a blank disc, I get the pop-up from the OS that asks if I want to launch Finder, iTunes, etc. I can burn files to the drive from Finder (at 6X) just fine. iTunes however...
I have iTunes 10.1.1 (4). I go to File | Library | Back Up to Disc... In the window that comes up, it lets me choose one of the two DVD burners:
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SE-S084D
Clearly the first is the internal drive and the second is the Samsung USB external drive.
If I set it to the second one (the external drive), then iTunes gets stuck on "Please insert a blank disc...". I've tried ejecting and reinserting the disc, inserting the disc before starting iTunes, etc. Nothing works. Then on a whim I wondered if it was really using the drive that I told it to use. So I tried to do another burn to the EXTERNAL drive and when it said "Please insert a blank disc...", I put a disc in the INTERNAL drive. Voila! The message went away and iTunes proceeded to attempt to burn using the internal drive, which failed in a minute or two (which is the reason why I bought the external DVD writer in the first place!).
I tried many times and even though I choose "TSSTcorp CDDVDW SE-S084D", iTunes keeps trying to use the internal drive. Then I wondered if iTunes perhaps was displaying the wrong labels for the drives, so I tried to instead selecting "MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E", hoping that iTunes would use the external drive. No dice. iTunes still used the internal drive. By the way, the Samsung shipped with the TS00 version of the firmware - I upgraded the firmware to version TS01 (the latest), but that didn't help with my iTunes problem.
So it seems to me that I have stumbled on a bug where iTunes DVD burning doesn't work properly on a system with multiple DVD writers. In the GUI, it offers a choice of DVD writers, but this seems to have no effect.
Can anyone verify this?
I suppose if I get desperate, I could try opening up the MacBook Pro and disconnecting the cable from the internal drive, on the hope that iTunes would then only one see DVD writer and would hopefully not get confused. That's pretty extreme though and I'd rather not open up the computer just to test out a theory.
Known issue? Can anyone verify this? Any other ideas for a software method for convincing iTunes to use the external DVD writer?
Thanks in advance!
-Marc

I use the console to watch for errors when burning CDs. The console can be found in the utilities directory under applications. I also use the system profiler to see if it reports the second drive seeing the empty disk, however your comment about being able to write playlist info says its seeing it and writing to the usb disk.
It maybe that iTunes doesn't support the USB DVD drive you have, or try moving to another USB port, preferable a high speed port, usb2. Again watch the console for messages being reported during the burn, buffer under or over runs, or read/write errors.
For the internal drive issue, either a bad or broken drive. One last thing to check is disk space, make sure it has more than 10% of free space left. If the drive is close to full, it could cause similar issues as you report.
Good luck

Multisession CD/DVD burning

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