Making CDs and DVDs using cdrecord and X-CD-Roast
- Quick Instructions
- Introduction
- Notes
- The first time you use X-CD-Roast
- Using X-CD-Roast
- Administration Issues
Use X-CD-Roast or your favorite graphical tool to make your iso image. You can write CD-Rs with X-CD-Roast. For CD+Rs see below. For all DVDs use the command line tool:
growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/cdrom=your_image.iso
Personal pet peeve: Please do not write images to your home directory. On the machines I have set up your home directory is not on a local file system which can cause problems when burning images. Do remove images when you are done.
I have written far more than I intended. My hope is that this page will allow my users to make their own CDs and DVDs with relative ease and avoid all of my problems. It is also a record of what I learned along the way so I don't have to keep repeating my mistakes.
X-CD-Roast is a graphical front end for creating images for CDs and DVDs and writing images to CDs and DVD-Rs. It can be very useful when you have a number of directories and lots of data. You can still use the command line tools for creating images and writing CDs and DVDs.
We are able to write to DVD-+R media on all the burners I am supporting. I personally have stopped supporting the Pro-DVD feature of X-CD-Roast and now tell everyone to use growisofs to burn DVDs. The authorization codes expires at regular intervals and this is after all Linux and command line tools are sometimes the easiest and best way. I found that the DVD writing component of X-CD-Roast, PRO-DVD only supports DVD-R.
Go to using X-CD-Roast for burning CDs only. You do not need any special permissions.
Please be sure to use a water-based marker for writing on your media. You can use special expensive markers made for the purpose or white board markers. These websites provide a lot of information about media storage and CDs in general: Information Week for storage and the cdrfaq.
Here is a nice link to an X-CD-Roast how-to. It applies to making images and burning CDs.
nautilus is the default program in Linux RedHat WS3 for burning CDs. It is listed in the CD Preferences and can be disabled. This is desireable because it starts every time you put blank media in the CD/DVD burner. Nautilus does not burn DVDs and I have not tried to see what it does in RedHat EL 4. To make a CD the program writes an image file to the /tmp directory, burns the CD and then immediately deletes the image. If you want another copy the image will have to be recreated. To disable: Main Menu -> Preferences -> CD Properties -> Uncheck - Blank CDs. Some people tell me they really like its drag and drop features. I tell them to make TWO copies of everything that matters. All this has changed in RedHat 4WS; things work rationally. I still prefer X-CD-Roast. And I always use growisofs to burn DVDs.
O users have found that a mounted CD can slow down performance. If you are concerned you may also wish to uncheck the "Mount CD when inserted" feature under Main Menu -> Preferences -> CD Properties. You would then use the command mount /dev/cdrom for a CD. DVDs never automount you always need to use sudo mount /dev/cdrom and similarly sudo umount /dev/cdrom. Again this has changed in 4WS which is so far only on a couple of my machines. If you are lucky someone has made an alias and you can just type mountdvd and unmountdvd. CDs and DVDs are mounted on /mnt/cdrom which I have linked to /cdrom. Use the command: cd /cdrom.
My simple answer to burning DVDs is to use growisofs. It does not require any superpowers and works well:
growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/cdrom=your_image.iso
In order to select individual files within X-CD-Roast you need to uncheck the Display Directories Only. This is useful when you want to put a README file in the top directory of the CD/DVD or you are backing up someone's home directory which has useful files in the top directory.
For CDs which can be up to 650MB please allow some space for overhead particularly if you have a lot of files. For DVDs I recommend keeping the image size below 4.5 GB because of overhead when burning the image. If you burn a DVD, apparently successfully, and it fails to mount under Linux check to see that you were not trying to burn a DVD+R with the wrong tool.
If you have a lot of stuff to store and do not mind having the data compressed into a single tar file by all means use:
tar cvzf /big_dir/filename.tar.gz /here/mydata -C /there/mydata
There are many options for the tar command; checkout "man tar." Gzip is not the only compression option and perhaps not the best but you have to make a tradeoff between the time it takes to compress the data and the decrease in the size of the resulting file. If you want to be able to just pop the media into a drive and instantly access the data this is NOT the way to go. To extract the data you might do something like:
cd /my_big_data_dir
tar xvzf /mnt/cdrom/filename.tar.gz
The first time you use X-CD-Roast
Start xcdroast from the command line or the icon. (Please do not do this using sudo. You only need sudo when you want to burn a DVD.) The first time you start the program you will see:
Please be agreeable and click on OK. And you will get the next Window.
You will see the Setup Window. The only setting you need to check and may wish to modify is the HD Settings which contains the directories where images are stored. You can add your own image directory or just take note of the default if there is one. Whatever directory you use please delete your images when you have finished.
You should click on Save Configuration and then OK. The next window you will see will be the actual program.
Top
Using X-CD-Roast.
Start the program and click on Create CD/DVD
You need to click on Master Tracks and a new window will open. You can select directories and drag them to the Session View window or click on Add. You will see the total space required for all the files you have selected when you go to the Create session/image pane.
When you select directories you will see the following dialog, asking how you want the directory chosen to appear on the CD or DVD. You have to make a choice or type in a different path and then click OK.
When you are done selecting directories the next tab which is important is the ISO9660 header which the name that appears next to the CD icon on the desktop. I usually use a name that means something in relation to the data. The volume header must be no more than 16 characters with no spaces. You can use underscores instead of spaces
The last pane for creating the image is Create session/image. You can see the New session size. You can name the image to something meaningful with File prefix. And when you are happy about everything you can click on Master to image file.
A CD image does not take long to make. I have not gotten into multi session CDs and you can only make single session DVDs. A large DVD image can take several minutes
When the image is complete click on OK. You now want to go to the left panel and select Write Tracks. This will bring up 2 panes. On the right are all possible iso files and you can select one and either click on Add or drag it into the left Images window. Next click on Accept track layout.
A new window will open. If you are writing a DVD then you will need to select the correct size of media under Disc Type. Next click on Write tracks. Even if there is blank media in the burner you will be asked to put it in again. And now you just have to wait. A big DVD takes a 10-20 minutes. I usually go off and do something else. It loads down the computer. If you want to make a second copy you click on Write Tracks again. If you are writing a DVD then you will need to select the correct media size.
Please delete your image files from /CD_DVD or /scr directory when you are finished. Be sure and label the disk(s).
N.B. I have not played around with multisession CDs because it is easy to make mistakes and lose what you previously stored. CDs are cheap.
On all new machines or reinstalls I am using the xcdroast rpm:
up2date --force xcdroast
I had a bad couple of days trying to understand why I could not successfully write DVD+Rs with X-CD-Roast. It led to this page.
sudo is a great program. I allow all users to run the necessary programs. Occasionally I got fancy they can do it without having to use a passwd.
%users ALL=/usr/bin/xcdroast,/usr/bin/cdrecord,/usr/bin/growisofs,/bin/mount /dev/cdrom,/bin/umount /dev/cdrom
Some of this is made easier in RedHat EL 4 where media mounts and unmount more easily.
If you have any improvements or suggestions for this page please let me know.
Sara Kunz - kunz at brandeis.edu
Feb 21, 2006