Burn folders, Disk Utility reporting larger-than-actual sizes, preventing burns due to media constraints (#2)
Burn folders, Disk Utility reporting larger-than-actual sizes, preventing burns due to media constraints (#2)
Users continue to report an issue where Burn Folders -- which rely on aliases -- indicate that the designated directory is larger than its actual size, in some cases preventing recording, reporting that not enough media volume space is available.
MacFixIt reader Steve Kelley writes:
"I had the same problem last week while burning a DVD. The data should just have barely fit on the DVD, but I got the same error message that Michael Kelly reports and had to split the data across two discs. I figured that there was some weird overhead issue. I didn't have time to troubleshoot. Curiously, I did think about trying Toast, but shrugged it off. I'm running 10.4.2 on a Dual 2.5 GHz G5."
Meanwhile, MacFixIt reader Kimball Kramer reports a similar issue when using Apple's Disk Utility to burn media:
Kimball writes:
"I am running Mac OS X 10.4.2 on a 3-week-old PowerMac 2.7 GHz. I am burning DVDs (for backup) using Apple's Disk Utility--part of the system software. Large folders are reported as having up to 50% larger size than they actually have, but intermittently. I can improve this by dragging sub-folders off and back onto the window. The problem occurs about 2/3's of the times I do a backup."
Workaround -- create a disk image first One potential workaround involves first creating a disk image with Disk Utility's "New Image" function. Create the image at the exact size of the data you'd like to burn (ensuring the figure is below the limit for the designated media), and you should not receive error messages indicating that the data to be burned cannot fit on the disc.
MacFixIt reader Obbie King is one reader who had success with this method:
"I ran into the same problem on two machines and found it quite puzzling to say the least. The workaround I used is to create an appropriately-sized disk image, add the data to it, and burn that image from disk utility.
"The catch with this workaround is that it eats up disk space. For our staff member who does most of the burning, we just keep one disk image on his desktop, and he moves files into and out of that image as needed. It's kinda clumsy, but at least we can use the full capacity of our blank DVDs."
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
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