Burning CDs for PC on Mac

U

umati

Registered
I have a Windows laptop without a cd burner. Now I'm thinking about downloading some linux OS or such and see how that works on the machine. Will the Mac be able to burn a cd so that it is fully supported to boot up on the pc, for example a linux live cd?

If so, what software do you recommend on the Mac for this job? Will Disk Utility work, or do I need to buy a commercial add-on like Toast?
 
Yes. I've done it with various x86 bootable ISO images. You have to use Disk Utility. In one of the menu selections, there's an option to "Burn Image". Select the image you want and off you go. :D
 
Yes. You download linux distros as .iso files. Those can be burnt both with Disk Utility or Toast without a problem.
 
I've also burned PPC-based ISO images on x86 computers. ISO is a standard format for CD images so no matter what computer you're on, the image will burn properly. You might have to test it on the platform that it supports to see if it actually burned properly however. :D
 
Yes, I just downloaded and burned Fedora linux on my Powermac G4, and the CD's were recognised and installed without a glitch on my old compaq laptop. I mounted the images that I downloaded (by double clicking them), and then they showed up in disk utility, and I just clicked the burn button. I'm pretty sure that theirs other ways to do this (as above), but thats how I did it.
 
Be careful not to mount the actual images, otherwise it might corrupt the ISO image.
 
Sounds great, I'm looking forward to try the linux thing.

Now for something perhaps a little more challenging. I would like to make a slipstreamed version of Windows with the latest service pack and updates and burn this to a bootable cd. I can extract the boot image file from the original disk on the pc, but I'm not sure how to handle the burning procedure on the Mac platform. The important thing of course is to make the cd bootable. If I could burn it on the pc it would be going something like this, I guess.

So can I get this done on the Mac with the end result working on the laptop? I think I read somewhere that Toast would not do bootable discs in the later versions, so I'm keen to hear about any first hand experiences.
 
Short answer = no. Slipstreaming a windows CD requires not just getting an image, but you have to run executables that will modify/patch the install files. I doubt this could be done on a Mac without some sort of emulation going on. Now, if you got the OS files slipstreamed on a windows PC, made an ISO of the files, and then you transfered it to the Mac via network, you might be able to do it. www.UBCD4win.com has some easy instructions to follow to make a SP2 CD from an older XP CD. Most of that info can be transfered to other patches as well.
 
You should look in to Toast 7. I use it. It has ISO9660 format operation option but it also has a simple PC compatibilit checkbox as well. An option I always use when burning information CDs and DVDs is to make the disk both readable by PC and Mac. Each file or folder that you set to burn has 2 checkboxes next to it. One for PC and One for Mac. If you want some files to be only visible when mounted on a Mac you do not check the PC box. and vice versa. If you check them all it adds about 50k to 1mb to the total disk size for invisible PC files that I do not know about. I have burned back-up Windows system software install disks to test the usefulness of the disks, just to see if they would work, and they worked fine. I don't know what Slipstreaming is, but Toast is an amzing probgram that has worked well for me. And, no, I don't work for them ;)
 
But try Disk Utility first to see if it will do all that you want . . . It's free. "/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility"

That said, I'm buying Toast 7. It has everything including DVD backup and general backup. Very cool.

Doug
 
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