I purchased my first CD and DVD burner, and I want to make backup
copies of CDs that came with various Windows software, e.g. the CD that
came with the CD burner, the CDs containing the Win OS, and so on, and
I want to be able to boot from those CDs. I suspect that if I simply
copy all files to a tmp directory, and write it out again the CD may
not boot. I thought I might "dd if=/dev/dvd of=image.iso", and then
put in a blank disk, and "dd if=image.iso of=/dev/dvd". Questions I
hope someone can answer are:

1. will dd work? Might it damage the burner? I've been told I should
always use something like growisofs or cdrecord.

2. To produce CDs for Windows I thought that something like "mkisofs
-J -R -o image.iso directory" would give maximum compatibility. Is that
correct ?

Thanks in advance for any help

klee12

klee12 wrote:
> I purchased my first CD and DVD burner, and I want to make backup
> copies of CDs

Generally, for beginners, k3b is a _very_ nice application. It's a
frontend for mkisofs, cdrecord, cdrdao and other burning-related apps
and is much like (early versions of) Nero and WinOnCD for Windows.

> 2. To produce CDs for Windows I thought that something like "mkisofs
> -J -R -o image.iso directory" would give maximum compatibility. Is that
> correct ?

Yep, but there are many more kinks to mkisofs. Be sure to read the manpage!

> Thanks in advance for any help

HTH

~Mik

--
Fac ut vitas.
// Get a life.

From "Essential Latin" by Henry Beard

On 2005-08-11, klee12 <klee12@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> 1. will dd work? Might it damage the burner? I've been told I should
> always use something like growisofs or cdrecord.

readcd works better than dd for making a copy of a data CD. The output
from readcd is a raw image file you can burn to a CD-R using cdrecord.
The man pages are helpful, as is the CD-Writing_HOWTO in the
/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs directory. There also are graphical CD writing
programs that I am not familiar with.

--
The night is just the shadow of the Earth.

In alt.os.linux.slackware, William Hamblen dared to utter,
> readcd works better than dd for making a copy of a data CD.

Could you explain why? I've been using dd for years to make data cds
without issues. A google search wasn't very helpful, and readcd's man
page doesn't mention dd at all.

--
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5

On 2005-08-12, +Alan Hicks+ <alan@lizella.netWORK> wrote:
> In alt.os.linux.slackware, William Hamblen dared to utter,
>> readcd works better than dd for making a copy of a data CD.
>
> Could you explain why? I've been using dd for years to make data cds
> without issues. A google search wasn't very helpful, and readcd's man
> page doesn't mention dd at all.

I've had readcd give me good data from iffy CDs when dd didn't.

--
The night is just the shadow of the Earth.

klee12 wrote:
> I purchased my first CD and DVD burner, and I want to make backup
> copies of CDs that came with various Windows software, e.g. the CD that
> came with the CD burner, the CDs containing the Win OS, and so on, and

which may in fact be illegal, depending on the country you live in... :-(

> I want to be able to boot from those CDs. I suspect that if I simply
> copy all files to a tmp directory, and write it out again the CD may
> not boot. I thought I might "dd if=/dev/dvd of=image.iso", and then
> put in a blank disk, and "dd if=image.iso of=/dev/dvd". Questions I
> hope someone can answer are:
>
> 1. will dd work? Might it damage the burner? I've been told I should
> always use something like growisofs or cdrecord.

dd should work to create an image of a cd. i have no idea if it'll work to
burn that image to a cd-r. (i suspect it won't...) but once you've created
an image, why not use cdrecord to burn it? that's what cdrecord does, burn
cd images to disk.

> 2. To produce CDs for Windows I thought that something like "mkisofs
> -J -R -o image.iso directory" would give maximum compatibility. Is that
> correct ?

AFAIK yes. i've created cd images that way myself.

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 06:35:33 +0000, Joost Kremers screamed:


>> 2. To produce CDs for Windows I thought that something like "mkisofs
>> -J -R -o image.iso directory" would give maximum compatibility. Is that
>> correct ?
>
> AFAIK yes. i've created cd images that way myself.

i think that bootable cds will not work any more if you copy them this
way; it's better to try with:
cdrdao copy
also look in the man page for cdrdao, becouse most likely you would have
to specify reading and writing device, speed, etc.

--
i.

+Alan Hicks+ <alan@lizella.network> wrote:
>
> Could you explain why? I've been using dd for years to make data cds
> without issues. A google search wasn't very helpful, and readcd's man
> page doesn't mention dd at all.

dd is ok for standard iso data CDs without errors.
readcd can test with some hardware for C2 errors, before any apparent
error and will give better results with scratched cdrom (won't say copy
protected game CD)

cu Frank

--
Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
1.) If it should exist, it doesn't.
2.) If it does exist, it's out of date.
3.) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws.

klee12 <klee12@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> 1. will dd work? Might it damage the burner? I've been told I should
> always use something like growisofs or cdrecord.

Reading a CD, yes, although there are other solutions.
For burning it is best to use cdrecorc, it also handles the "fixating"
and you can erase rewritables too with it.

> 2. To produce CDs for Windows I thought that something like "mkisofs
> -J -R -o image.iso directory" would give maximum compatibility. Is that
> correct ?

For yourself, no problem, for others I often use "-r" (lower case r) to:
1. make sure all files are readable (it will set all attributes to -r--r--r--
for normal files, dr-xr-xr-x for dirs) for everyone, and
2. it will make owner/group into 0/0, as to NOT create an unknown user
cq group for the destination machine.
Of course having a file "only readable for klee12", with klee12 an unknown
user id is not very useful for the receiver of the CD.

PS: sometimes windows DOES have problems with the RockRidge Extensions,
then you must make the image without any -[Rr] option at all!
--
************************************************** ******************
** Eef Hartman, Delft University of Technology, dept. EWI/TW **
** e-mail: E.J.M.Hartman@math.tudelft.nl, fax: +31-15-278 7295 **
** snail-mail: P.O. Box 5031, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands **
************************************************** ******************

Thanks everyone for your help. When I get the burner working I'll
probably use readcd because it is built for burning CDs and DVDs,
whereas dd is more general purpose. But it's nice to know someone tried
dd and it worked.

I have a Sony DRU 720A DVD/CD rewritable drive. I eventually got it
installed into my computer, and got it to read CDs, like my previous CD
drive. However I can't get it to write anything with growisofs. I think
the problem is that the drive is mounted read only. I change fstab and
the relevant line is

/dev/hdc /cdrom iso9660 rw,noauto,user,exec 0 0

which I think means that when I mount it, I should be able to read and
write to it. I reboot and as root I issue the command

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=cd.iso

according to the example in the man pages and growisfs says

:-( /dev/dvd: media is not recognized as recordable DVD: 8

The man pages of cdrecord and readcd which have examples, but those
examples specify the device using numbers like

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=2,0 cdimage.raw

I don't like to fool with devices unless I know what I'm doing so I
issue the command

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=/dev/dvd cd.iso

amd get the following error messags

Warning: Open by 'devname' is unin tentional and not supported.
cdrecord: Read-only file system. Cannot open '/dev/dvd'. Cannot
open SCSI driver.

There were other messages, some of them looking for scsi stuff. The
program readcd also uses the 2 numbers to specify device.

I have two questions:

1. how can I get Linux to open /dev/dvd to mount the dvd writeable?

2. Is it safe to use "dev=2,0" with cdrecord and readcd. It seems
that cdrecord doesn't like /dev/dvd.

Again thanks in advance for any help you can give. I'll be gone this
weekend and get back to work on this burner on monday.

klee12