Mac Users--CD Burning Problem

[Rhymingmechanic]

IMac G3 600MHz, OS 10.3.9, CD-RW drive only--no DVD capacity

I'm trying to burn photos to CD-R with Finder Burning. Just after the drive begins writing, a message appears saying the burn failed and the CD cannot be used: error code 0x80020022 "Communication with the disc drive failed."

This would seem not to be a hardware problem, because I CAN successfully burn a disc from iPhoto, but that mixes up the file organization when reading the disc with other applications or Windows machines. I was even able to burn a CD that Finder said couldn't be used.

Here's what I've tried so far, without success:

1. Lowered the burn speed.

2. Two different CD brands, Memorex and TDK.

3. Repaired permissions with Disk Utilities. (I didn't use the startup CD, which is 10.3.5.)

4. Started in OS 9 and tried to burn with Finder. Again, the operation quit soon after the drive began spinning. Error 7932 "There was a problem with the target device."

I'm fairly new to OS 10, and like to use computers more than work on them. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[simple_gifts]

Have you opened a console window prior to burning? Any specific device errors will be reported there (This is debugging technique, not a "fix it" technique) With these errors, it should give you a better idea of what is going wrong(more than the usual "It isn't working" messages that an app throws up.)

If no errors are reported in the console windows, you can open a "Terminal" window and type "dmesg"; this should report entries in the system log.

I don't have a Mac, I am shooting with Unix experience here....

 

[Rhymingmechanic]

I checked the console log. It is basically gibberish to me, but there are some error details. Do these clarify anything?

Unsuccessful Finder burn, one of several:

Mac OS X Version 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
2007-06-30 16:20:59 -0400
Finder: Burn started, Sat Jun 30 16:32:29 2007
Finder: Burning to CD-R media with SAO strategy in MATSHITA CD-RW CW-7121 AH36 via ATAPI.
Finder: Requested CD burn speed was 1x, actual burn speed is 2x.
Finder: Burn underrun protection is not supported.
Finder: Write (10), block: -150, count: 32 -> 3/73/03 Medium Error, Power calibration area error
Finder: Burn failed, Sat Jun 30 16:33:03 2007
Finder: Burn sense: 3/73/03 Medium Error, Power calibration area error
Finder: Burn error: 0x80020022 The device failed to respond properly, unable to recover or retry.

Here's the iPhoto disc that worked:

2007-06-28 10:05:50.446 iPhoto[464] Could not find image named `back'.
Initializing...
Creating...
Finishing...
created: /private/tmp/502/TemporaryItems/iPhoto/img-C7F63666258411DC.sparseimage
Initialized /dev/rdisk3s2 as a 702 MB HFS Plus volume
iPhoto: Burn started, Thu Jun 28 10:42:03 2007
iPhoto: Burning to CD-R media with SAO strategy in MATSHITA CD-RW CW-7121 AH36 via ATAPI.
iPhoto: Requested CD burn speed was max, actual burn speed is 8x.
iPhoto: Burn underrun protection is not supported.
iPhoto: Burn finished, Thu Jun 28 10:50:24 2007
iPhoto: Verify started, Thu Jun 28 10:50:24 2007
iPhoto: Verify finished, Thu Jun 28 10:57:38 2007

 

[simple_gifts]

Searching around some people have suggested that older CD-RW burners don't write that well to 52x CD media.


http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-19983.html

http://www.pnelsoncomposer.com/FAQs/iDVDBurnErrors.html

 

[Rhymingmechanic]

simple_gifts,

Thanks for that info. I have been searching "CD" and mostly ignoring posts about DVD's, but it looks like the problem could be the burner's age vs. current media.