Building ISO's to Span DVDs

[itsbill]

I've got about 15-20GB of data that I'm trying to back up to DVD-R, and am trying to get ImgBurn (or any other app for that matter) to simply take a list of folders, break them into DVD sized chunks, and burn them, file paths and all. ImgBurn has a rock-solid burning engine and comes *really close* to doing what I need. I go into Build Mode, and add the 4-5 directories that contain all the files i need to burn, go under Tools -> Settings -> Build, Set the File Splitting to 4.55 GB (awesome!), and instead of running this right to DVD, I decide to write out the ISO's to test and make sure the disk layout is the way I want, so I flip Build over to Write ISO File mode.

 

Well, everything appears to work exactly the way I'd expect......except the filenames are not .iso, but names like myfiles.i01, myfiles.i02, myfiles.i03, etc etc. Which I thought was no big deal, they're just numbered sequentially. So I rename myfiles.i01 to myfiles.iso, and open it with a ISO viewer. To my suprise, the first ISO has *all* my files in it, all 15GB or so, even though the file I'm opening is only 4.55GB. So I rename the first ISO back, and rename myfiles.i02 to myfiles.iso. "Sorry, cannot open ISO, file is corrupt or damaged." Same thing with all the other files as well.

 

Is there something I'm doing wrong? I have noticed when I calculate the job size, it says "Min Req. Media: BD-R/RE or HD DVD-RAM", of course which I have neither. Does Imgburn not do what I'm trying to accomplish, or did I just run into a bug with ISO File creation, and that burning to disc is ok? If it's not something that ImgBurn does, could I please make a feature request? I have scoured the internet for days for a application to just burn this large stack of files to (smaller that DVD, ie 4.55) disc sized pieces, do so reliably, and in their native (UDF) format.

 

Thanks,

 

Bill

[LIGHTNING UK!]

ImgBurn doesn't split it, you need to do that yourself.

 

So instead of selecting 20GB of data, select 4GB, burn 1st disc, select the next 4GB, burn 2nd disc etc.

 

Or go looking round for a proper backup tool that supports burning to DVDs.

[itsbill]

ImgBurn doesn't split it, you need to do that yourself.

So what is the function of the file splitting option under the Build tab actually do then?

 

Or go looking round for a proper backup tool that supports burning to DVDs.

Ah, well, trust me, I've tried. Not only is a backup tool overkill for what I need, I cannot for the life of me find one that a) lets me specify a custom DVD size (doesn't burn a whole 4.7GB), and backs up to native file format (no backupsoft.bk1, bk2, bk3, or zips). All I need is a program that will go down a list, fill it up until it hits a preset size, and burn a disk. Imgburn was honestly the closest app I could find that looked like it could do it. I could do it by hand, but thats prone to error (IMO), and very tedious.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

File splitting is mainly for people that like to limit the maximum size of files on their hdd (or need to - i.e. in the case of FAT32 not supporting files > 4GB in size).

 

I guess you could always have it split in 4 GB chunks and then put those chunks on a disc.

 

That is to say you make an ISO around part of an ISO!

 

Of course you'd still need the entire set to be able to read any of the data and you'd need to somehow get all the files in 1 location somewhere to do that.

 

I believe there's a program called 'Burn to the brim' that might help you sort out what to add to the disc each time - if you do decide to go the manual route.