Burning CDs/DVDs with Disk Utility In addition to helping you maintain your disks, Disk Utility can also help you burn CDs and DVDs. It is especially useful when you want to burn a CD or DVD from a disk image file. Another great use of this is to back up image files for the applications you download from the Internet; rather than keeping a folder of these items on your hard drive, you can use Disk Utility to burn a folder of images onto a CD or DVD. The benefit to burning a disk image onto a CD or DVD using Disk Utility rather than just using the Finder is that, when you use Disk Utility, the image is mounted when you insert the CDyou don't have to first open the disk image file to mount it. TIP One of the best reasons to use Disk Utility to burn CDs or DVDs is that you can leave a disc open so you can burn to it multiple times. When you use the Finder, you can have only one recording session for a disc. When you use Disk Utility, you can choose to make a disc appendable, meaning you can burn to it more than one time.
Creating a Disk Image to Burn Before you can burn a disc using Disk Utility, you create a disk image containing the folders and files you want to place on the disc using the following steps: 1. | Launch Disk Utility and click the New Image button on the toolbar. The New Image sheet will appear.
| 2. | Name the disk image and choose where you want to save it. The name of the disk image will become the name of the disc you burn it onto.
| 3. | Select the format options on the pop-up menus. Choose the size of the image on the Size pop-up menu; you will see various size options including those sized for CD or DVD media. Choose the encryption you want to use on the Encryption pop-up menu; if you choose to create an encrypted disc, you won't be able to use it without a password. Choose the format on the Format menu; to burn a disc, choose "read/write disk image."
| 4. | Click Create. The disk image will be created and will be mounted on your Mac; you can access the disk image just like other volumes such as hard disks.
| 5. | Open the disk image by selecting it on the Places sidebar and drag folders or files onto it to add them to the image. Do this until all the files and folders you want to put on disc are part of the disk image. You are limited to the size of the image you selected using the Size pop-up menu.
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Burning a Single Disk Image on CD or DVD To put a disc image on CD or DVD using Disk Utility, do the following: 1. | Launch Disk Utility. If you have worked with the disk image recently, it will be listed in the lower part of the left pane of the Disk Utility window (which Disk Utility calls being attached); you can skip to step 4. If it isn't listed, you will need to locate it using Disk Utility.
| 2. | Locate the disk image by choosing File, Open Disk Image. The "Select Image to Attach" dialog box will appear.
| 3. | Move to and select the disk image you want to place on disc; then click Open. The image you selected will be attached to Disk Utility and you will see it in the left pane of the window.
TIP Disk images are separated from physical disks by the dividing line that appears in the left pane of the Disk Utility window when at least one disk image is attached. Anything above the line is a physical disk of volume; anything below the line is a disk image. | 4. | Select the disk image you want to burn to disc.
NOTE If the disk image is currently mounted, you will see its mounted icon below the disk image file itself. You need to select the image file, not the mounted icon. | 5. | Choose Images, Burn, press  -B, or click the Burn button. The Burn sheet will appear. Your disc drive will also open.
TIP If you have more than one drive that can burn discs available to you, choose the drive you want to use on the "Burn Disc In" pop-up menu. | 6. | Insert the disc on which you want to burn the image into the open disc drive and close it by clicking the Close button in the sheet. The drive will be prepared and the Burn button will become active.
| 7. | Set the burn speed by using the Speed pop-up menu. In most cases, Maximum Possible is the best choice. However, if you have problems burning discs, a slower speed might help.
| 8. | If you are burning to an erasable disc, check the "Erase disc before burning" check box to erase the disc before you burn to it.
| 9. | If you want to be able to add more data to the disc at a later time, check the "Leave disc appendable" check box. This is one of the best reasons to use Disk Utility to burn discs; you can add data to discs during multiple burn sessions.
| 10. | Make sure the "Verify burned data" check box is checked to have your Mac verify the disc after the burn is complete; if you are confident and want to save some time, you can uncheck this box.
| 11. | Click the "Eject disc" radio button if you want the disc ejected when it has been burned, or click the "Mount on Desktop" radio button if you want the disc to be mounted instead.
| 12. | Review the options you have selected and either click Burn or press Return when you ready to burn the disc (see Figure 31.13). You will see the Progress window that displays the progress of the burn.
Figure 31.13. The Burn Disc sheet has been configured and the disc is ready to burn. 
| 13. | When the process is complete, you'll hear the "burn complete" tone and the finished prompt will appear; click OK and the disc is ejected or mounted on the desktop, depending on the option you selected in step 11 (see Figure 31.14).
Figure 31.14. Here, I have placed a disk image (called Book_Files) containing book files on a CD; above the CD of the same name, you can also see the disk image which is still mounted. 
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TIP To unattach disk images from Disk Utility, select the disk image file and press Delete or drag its icon out of the window. This does not delete the image file itselfit just removes it from the Disk Utility window.
If you leave a disc appendable, you can repeat these steps to add disk images to it. When you append files to a disc, the Burn button becomes the Append button to indicate that you are adding files to the disc rather than burning it for the first time. CAUTION If you want a disk image to mount when you insert the CD on which you want it burned, burn only one disk image on the disc. If you add multiple disk images to the same disc, only the one you most recently burned is accessible in the Finder. You should use the multiple session option only when you are burning other types of files onto a disc or when you are adding files to the same disk image.
TIP You can use Disk Utility to erase CD-RW or DVD-RW discs. To do so, launch the application, insert the CD-RW or DVD-RW you want to erase, click the Erase tab, and use the tab's tools to erase the disc. You can also erase such discs by using the "erase" check box in the Burn sheet.
Burning a Folder on CD or DVD Using the following steps, you can create a disk image from a folder and then burn that image onto a disc: 1. | Gather all the files you want to put onto a disc in a single folder.
| 2. | Open Disk Utility.
| 3. | Select File, New, Disk Image from Folder.
| 4. | Move to and select the folder from which you want to create an image.
| 5. | Click Image. You will see the New Image from Folder dialog box (see Figure 31.15). Use this dialog box to name the disk image and choose the options for the image.
Figure 31.15. The New Image From Folder dialog box enables you to configure a disk image you are creating. 
| 6. | Name the disk image file and select the location in which you want to store it.
| 7. | On the Image Format pop-up menu, select a format for the image you are creating. The read/write option creates an image you can add more files to later. The read-only option creates a "closed" image to which files can't be added later. The compressed option creates a compressed version of the folder so you can get more files in a smaller space. The DVD/CD master creates a disk image ready to be put on disc.
| 8. | Use the Encryption pop-up menu to choose an encryption scheme for the image file if you want to protect the data it contains. If you select none, the image is not encrypted.
| 9. | Click Save. You will see a Progress window as the image file is created. When the process is complete, the disk image you created is shown in the Source pane.
| 10. | Select the disk image you just created and follow the steps in the previous section to put that image on disc.
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Burning a Volume on CD or DVD You can also create a disk image from an entire volume. Then you can place that image on a disc for backup or other purposes. The steps you follow are very similar to those in the previous section. The only difference is that you select the volume from which you want to create a disk image and then select File, New, Image from volume where volume is the name of the volume you selected. That volume is then selected and you move to the Convert Image dialog box. |
