Burning a CD

Hi,
On an iMac, I am trying to burn a CD from a file on an external hard drive.No problem in the burning process except that the CD won't play on a portable player which I was more or less told when burning it when I was told that the disc would play on a Mac or Windows with no mention of other types of players.Can anyone help with a way around this?Thank you

In order to burn a CD so that it's compatible on another computer, operating system, or even in your automobile, you should be using the ISO 9660 or Joliet burn format and the session must be closed (finalized).

Thanks chscag but I will have to ask you to explain that ! What is ISO 9660 /Joliet burn?Do I have to download a specific programme? And how is the disc finalized ? Sorry about the touch of ignorance on these matters.

First, some good reading on "Universal Disk Format" in the Wikipedia. LINK

Essentially, the format that you use to burn the CD should be one that can be read on other machines and operating systems. ISO9660 and Joliet are the industry standards.

Disk finalizing means that you direct the burning software to write the TOC (table of contents) and then close the disk so no further additions to it can be made.

Any software that is employed should be capable of burning to the ISO9660 format and of course be able to finalize the disk. Which software did you use?

Let's start over. Your initial post was REAL light on details.

What is it you are trying to burn, to what format? What device are you wanting the "CD" (or do you mean DVD) to play on?

Sorry for the lack of details.I am trying to burn music on to a CD.As it happens this music is on an external drive but that wasn't an issue in the actual burning process.I want to be able to play the CD then on a portable CD player. The CD burnt fine but won't play on the portable.Being a switcher,in another life,I used Sonic on the PC to burn and it offered me the choice of what I wanted to play the CD on.And being just that tad unaware of the technicalities I never knew about what format.Just burnt them!Thanks

You can't just drop files on a CD and expect it to behave like a music CD. What you created was essentially a Data CD with MP3 files on it. Your portable player would have to specially support playing data CDs.

What you need to do is use iTunes. Import your song files into iTunes, then make a playlist, right click and "Burn to Disc".

That will create a standard music CD that usually works on modern CD players.

I also heard about these new things called iPods...

Cheers
Yogi

Thanks everyone.I did as yogi suggested but only after a "duh"moment when I realized that the original file was WMA.However after converting, all is done.Thanks again.Yes yogi,I have indeed heard of iPod.Have you heard of empty bank account ;-).