data cd burned w/ toast not recognized by win xp

hey guys..
i burned a data cd for a friend with my imac and the toast software. i made sure that you could use the cd with mac and windows.
after i finished i tested it out on my winxp laptop and it worked fine..i was able to open up the files and everything.

i sent out the disc to her and now she can't open it. the disc shows it is blank.
shouldn't windows(xp) be able to open up the disc regardless if it has been updated?
i'm clueless..any help is appreciated.

andpr0mises said:

hey guys..
i burned a data cd for a friend with my imac and the toast software. i made sure that you could use the cd with mac and windows.
after i finished i tested it out on my winxp laptop and it worked fine..i was able to open up the files and everything.

i sent out the disc to her and now she can't open it. the disc shows it is blank.
shouldn't windows(xp) be able to open up the disc regardless if it has been updated?
i'm clueless..any help is appreciated.

Click to expand...

It should be able to read it. My guess is that your friend's optical drive is not multi-session capable. This can happen particularly if the drive is not a burner, but a plain old reader.

andpr0mises,

One other thing to consider - most PC optical drives don't read and write both R+ and R- disks, they are geared to R+. So don't send R- disks because they won't be readable.

Noel

thanks for the info

i've burned actual music cds for her in the past and it worked fine. but i really can't remember if it was a cd+r.
the data cd i did burn for her IS a cd-r
i had her test a dvd, the old cd again..and those worked fine.

is there a way to figure out if the OLD cd i had burned for her in the past was cd+r?
that would be the answer to my original problem right there.

i actually had her download this MacDisk software (MacDisk is a utility for reading, writing and formatting Apple Macintosh magnetic media on an IBM compatible PC) but it did not work.

andpr0mises said:

thanks for the info

is there a way to figure out if the OLD cd i had burned for her in the past was cd+r?
that would be the answer to my original problem right there.

Click to expand...

I don't think most CDs are physically marked that way. At least I don't recall - I always just but R+'s... The package they come in is marked, so just look at it when you purchase.

Certainly all Memorex, Verbatim and Phillips CDs are marked -R +R as the case maybe.

the case i have NOW is cd-r
the cd i made for her months and months ago (that worked) i don't have
and it doesn't say on the actual cd whether it's + or -
so, i was wondering if you could tell any other way?

andpr0mises,

Not that I can recall, unless maybe Nero has a tool for CD checking, but that would probably be the PC version anyhow... You could Google and ask that question, see what you get.

Noel