I have been using CD-RW disks on my Apple MacBook Pro, and while I have figured out how to use a Burn Folder to create the disk in the first place, how do I rewrite the disk with newer content without having to buy something expensive like Roxio Toast??
I’ve used Toast for so long that I don’t really have much experience with the built-in Mac CD burning capabilities, but some experimentation showed me what you already know: using a Burn Folder is fun and easy! I also figured out how to rewrite disks so you can wipe older content and reburn the CDROM with the newer material. But let me show you the steps involved in burning a CD first…
To create a CD-ROM disk on a Mac OS X system, simply choose File –> New Burn Folder from within Finder. Now you have a folder that looks mostly the same as any other folder, except anything you drag to it is automatically turned into an alias that points to the original content rather than the content itself.
When I’ve dragged on folders of photos from my recent cruise, here’s what my burn folder looks like:
Rather than put in a blank CDRW disk, however, as it’s asking for once I click on the Burn button on the top right:
I’ll put in a previously burned CDRW which, no surprise, shows up as a mounted disk but doesn’t work with the burn capability. You’ve probably encountered this problem when you were hoping you could just click “overwrite”!
The secret is to use Apple’s Disk Utility to wipe or erase the disk, eject it, and then reinsert it so you can overwrite it with the content you want. Not as easy as it could be, perhaps, but quite doable nonetheless.
You’ll find Disk Utility in Applications –> Utilities. Open it, click on the “erase” tab, and you should see something like this:
Click on the “Session” entry and the options change to:
Click on Erase and it’ll confirm that’s what you really want to do:
Again, click on Erase and, finally, it’ll go ahead and wipe all the information on the disk. It takes about five minutes to accomplish this task and when it’s done, the next thing you’ll see is the Mac message that you’ve put in a blank, empty disk:
That’s what we want to see! Click on Eject, then go back to your burn folder and click on the Burn button. Now, when it asks for a blank disk, you guessed it, push the newly erased CDROM disk back into the Mac:
Type in a name that you’d like to have as the disk title and click Burn. Now you’ll get to watch a thrilling progress bar as the new data is poured onto the disk and verified:
That’s all there is to it. In practice, however, I found that about 20% of the time the disk didn’t survive the burn / erase / burn cycle so don’t be too surprised if you get a verification error (and do test the disk even if it says it’s corrupt).
I tried to erase a CDRW but the Erase button is not active. When I place the cursor over the Erase button I get this message “This operation can not be performed on an optical disc”What do I do now?
Thank you very much. This is really helpful 🙂
Best & clearest advice I have EVER found on the internet. Dave you are ace. Thankyou.
Thank you so much for this! So helpful!
I do hate Web curmudgeons, but here I go anyway:
This is really Neanderthal. There are all sorts of apps for PCs that will take your CD-RW, save what’s already on it, and add whatever else you choose to drag and drop. They will erase the CD, put the original stuff with whatever you want to add, and burn it all in one swell foop. Some have options for limiting what stays from the original. I work on multiple computers, and security prohibits me from using either the Drop Box utility or flash drives. (Soon, I expect security will confiscate our pencils.) My only option for carrying files around is CD or DVD. So after working with my cheap, rickety, work PCs that will do this, I come home to my LION-equipped, shiny new $2500 iMac, and the process that sails through on the PCs is pathetically crippled here. Of course, it would be a minor inconvenience if I didn’t have to do it so dang often. Anyhow, as far as I’m concerned, the LION has SNORED.
you are amazing!!! i was going to freak out if i wasted 5 dollars on a re-writeable cd. thank you soo much!!
Thank you so much. Very clear and helpful instruction.
Thanks….such a big help!
This was so helpful! Thanks a load.
Kesha x
A really useful tip.
Thanks for it.
Hi, this saves my life with my study techniques!! Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!
Very Helpful Thank you!
Thank you very much!
just to say many thanks for the tip! Thought I was wasting the money with RW discs 😉
just use QuickErase, a freeware utility.
The terminal command “drutil erase quick” erases the disc currently in the drive. Type (or Google) “man drutil” for more info. You can easily turn this into a double-clickable Applescript applet to avoid all that faffing about in Disk Utility.
Was wondering if there is a way to add more content to the already existing content on a CD? That is without erasing the existing content.
Thanks for the tip, have always been wondering how to burn a session with the built-in burner.
Yes, this is a very clunky aspect of OS X. In the next OS X version, I hope that the Finder includes erase and sessions burning capabilities.