Re: Creating & Copying Data CDs.

[Steven Pritchard <steve@silug.org>]

On Wed, Oct 08, 2003 at 09:11:31PM +0000, hcrouch@mchsi.com wrote:
> I have been studying two tutorials that I found on the internet.
> 
> YoLinux says that there are two methods which I can use to make iso
> images of data CDs.
> 
>   cat /dev/cdrom > /home/user/isoname.iso

That will work, although it is probably suboptimal.

>   mkisofs /dev/cdrom -r -o /home/user/isoname.iso.

That won't work.

> Troubleshooters.com says that the only way I can be 100% sure that the
> iso looks precisely like the CD is to do the following two-step
> process.
> 
>   1. isoinfo /dev/cdrom -d -i 
> 
> which will report block size (bs) and volume size (count), then
> 
>   2. dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/user/isoname.iso bs=nnnn count=nnnnnn

That will work.

> YoLinux warns that any other procedure might produce an iso which
> generates a md5sum different from the original CD.

The Troubleshooters.com route will give you the exact image, but the
YoLinux "cat" method will work well enough.  I usually just do

    dd if=/dev/cdrom of=filename.iso bs=16k

and let the kernel figure out when it has run out of data to read.

> YoLinux also warns that I should ALWAYS use the -pad switch when
> burning data CDs. I read the description of the -pad switch in the
> cdrecord man page, but I'm not geeky enough to understand what the
> writer was trying to tell me. :-(

Don't hold me to this, but I'm pretty sure -pad only applies to audio
CDs.

Steve
-- 
steve@silug.org           | Southern Illinois Linux Users Group
(618)398-7360             | See web site for meeting details.
Steven Pritchard          | http://www.silug.org/

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