Possible to span large image across CD's?

[homerj32]

Unfortuantely I have a number of older IBM and clone laptops for a school recycling/donation program that I need to image and the drives are CD only which do not support DVD's, so the DVD I created will be useful for other projects but not this one. I cannot seem to get image file (1.8Gb) broken into multiple files so that I can transfer them onto a small FAT32 partition on each machine. Then I can just hide that partition for the IT manager at the school who can re-image the machine every semester from the partition by booting from a bootable CD that I created with your product.

 

If I get this working, I will be happy to donate at least a portion of the funds that I was going to have to spend on Roxio. I'm a non-profit so saving money is huge, but saving half is jsut as good to see development funds go towards this product which is easy to use and even better than Roxio, it works!

[blutach]

When making your image, set file splitting to whatever you want.

 

Tools - Settings - Read - File Splitting - 700Mb

 

That should work for you.

 

Regards

[homerj32]

Thanks for the quick reply. I've held many a network, HDD and ribbon cable in place with blutach. Great stuff! If you find some in a PC at a Hog's Breath Cafe in Australia while you're doing maintenance, it wasn't me.

 

Found that setting, I guess the problem that I have come across is that I am dealing with large compressions within the image that I am trying to create as it is, such is ISO's for WINXP, Office, Symantec, and others that are exceeding the 700 MB size on their own and as such are the application is not going to split them when creating the image. Was thinking about it as a layman for a while and for some reason thought that it would split the files inside the image (D'OH!), but since I ran out of beer about 2 hours ago and have been drinking Coke again, my though processes are starting to clear up. It is after midnight here and you can't buy anymore booze, so intelligence is creeping back in to play. Sorry to trouble you and thanks for your reply, it would indeed solve my problem once I solve the PEBCAK error.

 

I need to rethink my strategy, but this is definitely the best tool I have found for burning in a long time. I'll be sending a donation by week's end as well as letting my former colleagues from BOBJ/SAP who aren't in the fold know about your work. Keep it up.

 

Thanks again

[homerj32]

Just a follow up as I am re-working my image strategy and burning a new set of XP ISO images so that I can fit them onto CD's, I wnated to let anyone else that might face this problem know that there are two other things that may occur as 'gotchas' if you're not careful or diligent in reading all of the manuals. First and foremost, when in Read Mode, ensure that you have set the Destination to a file on your hard drive, otherwise the image splitting does not occur at all because of course the default output is to your media. Next, there is also a corresponding Tools - Settings - Write - File Splitting - 700Mb, which may or may not need to be used in concert, or may work on it's own.

 

If I happen to test that one later this week and find out more, I'll post the results.

[homerj32]

Went back to my previous strategy as a test with new settings in the last post saved and now original ISO's are being split a treat, just like a bought one!! It's exactly the solution I needed.

 

Thanks very much for everything. This is so much easier to use than anything else.

 

And thanks for the entertainment with Ondras. After 14 years of tech support with various companies it was nice to see it said properly!

[blutach]

We aim to please - and if we can't do that, we aim to entertain. And if yer not happy with our brand of entertainment, well, you can f*ck off! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA =)) =))

 

Regards

[homerj32]

Sadly a new problem has reared it's ugly head today now that I have built my ISO's into i0x's with corresponding MDS files and am trying to burn using a Sony DVD QW-G120A burning to Memorex CD-RW 12x CD's. The problem is in the Write phase, when I am selecting the MDS for the overall project and I receive a warning telling me that the image is too large (1.8GB) for the media (702MB) which is why I split it into the lovely MDS project to begin with. I thought that by selecting the MDS, Image Burn would know to burn each file one at a time as they were created.

 

I have searched the FAQ's and Guides unsuccessfully for the past few hours looking for information on writing or burning MDS projects. If the information is there, then please just provide me with the breadcrumb to find it and I will keep looking dutifully for it but unfortunately keyword searches have been fruitless.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You can't burn the split files like that.

 

Once you've split them you have to use Build mode to write them to disc - so you actually burn a copy of the image file (as a real file) to the disc.

 

Due to the additional overhead of the new filesystem etc it's best to split at 690mb rather than 700 - as 700 is the limit of the disc.

[homerj32]

Thanks for that LUK. Makes sense, especially when reducing the image break size to 650MB and then doing the files one at a time. Tried to do that in Write Mode, but the ever helpful ImgBurn applicaiton ensured that I chose the MDS . Excellent option having this write function available int he build phase as well.

 

If this works, I'll even bury my prejudice and use PayPal.

[homerj32]

Unfortunately, I have tried across two different machines now and had the same result. Each time it looks like the process has succeeded, yet the disc remains blank and when reinserted to my Vista machine for instance, I am asked what I want to do with this 'Blank CD'. Try to burn to it again, I am prompted that I need to erase it, however I am not able to see files on this media through Windows, a Linux shell or if I use ImgBurn to use it as a source so I suspect that there is something that I am doing wrong. Having reviewed the Guides, and changed but the few options mentioned in this thread, I am at a loss to see what my user error is, so I attach the log in the hope that it reveals my folly and in the meantime trundle off with MS CD in hand to get the first laptop built by hand for the school admin by Wednesday.

 

Logfile - ImgBurn.log - Windows Vista

Logfile - ImgBurn1.log - Windows 2003 Server

 

Any tips would be appreciated.

ImgBurn1.log

ImgBurn.log

[LIGHTNING UK!]

They both burnt and verifed fine so there's no way the discs are blank.

 

Examine them with something like IsoBuster to be sure.

 

It could just be that your drives aren't able to read those CD-RW very well.

[homerj32]

Thanks again for the reply. I don't understand the difference, but then I am not a CD/DVD HW expert by any stretch, but following some of the posted links I updated some of the firmware on the drives and can now read the discs through Windows on three different machines. Therefore, you are correct (again or is that still?), and your product works like a champ! I have not tried to read them outside of Windows as there was a problem with the CD boot image I used/created, but that is what trial and error is for now that I know the basic process is working on CD and DVD.

 

I'll pay up now, go away and learn for a few weeks, then be back to help field questions or even write documentation from threads for FAQs when you deem me fit to do so.

 

Thanks for the answers