How Do I Create A Dvd Disc Image File?

[GriffinW]

I used to do this in previous versions of toast, but now that I have Toast 9.0.4, it either works differently, or this feature has been removed. I create a DVD project, and choose to save as disc image (from either the file menu or the icon in the Toast window), which I have always done, so I can preview and test the disk. What I always got before was a Mac image file (.dmg), which was mountable with DiskImageMounter or Disk Utility and playable with DVD player. But now what I get is a series of exactly 1GB files with names like MyDVD.toast.001, MyDYD.toast.002, MyDVD.toast.003, etc. No single, mountable disc image. I can use Toast to mount these files as a disk, and it shows up in the Finder looking and acting like a DVD, but only the first 20-25 minutes of the disc will play in DVD Player, and then I get errors and it quits. I suspect this is the point in which it is trying to read beyond the first 1GB file, but I'm just guessing. If I burn the project right to a blank DVD, it plays fine, beyond the 20 minutes or so that will play from the image that toast mounts. Not being able to create a single disk image defeats the point of testing the image before burning a DVD.

 

This has happened with several different projects, different videos, etc, the results are always the same, this is not an issue with just one particular project. As far as I can tell, this is the way that Toast works. If I had not done this with previous versions, or if Toast Help didn't say otherwise (see next paragraph), I would assume that this was the way it was supposed to function. Also, I can not use these files to burn a disk using Disk utility, and, to have a disk mounted, I need to keep Toast running, as it greys out the quit function on Toast when I have a disk mounted.

 

The Help file (pdf) for Toast 9 says (page 35) that selecting "Save As Disc image" will create a Mac Disk image file that is mountable using Disk utility. It says it does this 'by default' which seems to imply that maybe there is an option to change that, but I can not find anything in the preferences to change the way a disc image is saved.

 

So, does anybody know how to create a a Disc image file (.dmg) file from a DVD project in Toast 9.0.4? Or can you confirm it is no longer possible, so I don't waste any more time on this?

 

Thanks,

 

Griffin

[GriffinW]

Thanks for the info. My problem seems to be different, though. But, after playing around with it for a while longer, I discovered some new info, and a work around, so maybe this will help shed some light on the problem:

 

I have several external hard drives, both Firewire 400/800 and USB. I had mostly filled up my 500 GB Firewire800 drive, so I got an additional FW400 1TB drive, and I have been saving my TiVo videos and DVDs to the new 1TB drive. Today, I tried saving my DVD project to the original FW800 500GB drive, and it created a perfect disc image. (.toast, but mounts like a .dmg, in fact I can change the extension and it mounts fine.) Curious. I tried the same thing on my internal iMac Drive (SATA), and no problem. I then tried to save the same project (I never quit toast between the saves) to the 1TB FW800 drive, and it created the separate files with .001, .002, etc. extensions. So it seems that Toast saves the image differently on the 1TB drive.

 

I have no problem saving files larger than 1GB on the TB drive, in fact, I was able to drag the 3.6GB Disc Image over to it, and it copied and opened fine.

 

Both External FW drives are WD Mybook external drives. The 500GB is a Firewire400/800/USB drive, and the 1TB is a FW400/USB/eSATA drive, daisy chained off the other FW drive. The 500GB is hooked up to my iMac via FW800, and then I have a FW800 to FW400 cable that connects to the 1TB drive. This setup all seems to work fine, as I regularly copy and move files between all drives. But something about this setup makes Toast create separate 1GB size files on the 1TB drive. When I have some time, I plan to hook the drives up in a different way, and try it again, and I'll post the results back here, if anybody's interested.

 

Meanwhile, I can save on my other drive, and drag it over to the 1TB drive, but I am really curious how/why this is happening.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Griffin

[tsantee]

That has me stumped, too. I don't even know what did the segmenting into parts. My brother saves Toast projects to his LaCie drives that are similar to yours.

 

Is it possible you didn't format the new drive to HFS+?

[GriffinW]

You know, as I was out this evening, and thinking about this, I wondered to myself whether I had reformatted the drive to HFS. I ALWAYS do, so I thought I had. But I got home tonight, and I checked, and sure enough the drive was still formatted as FAT32, as it comes from the factory that way, and apparently, I neglected to reformat it. Once I included FAT32 in my search criteria, I found a posting about Toast 8 creating multiple files on FAT32 volumes that didn't come up with my earlier searches.

 

Now, FAT32 can handle files sizes up to 4GB, so I still don't know why Toast was creating separate files for a 3.6GB DVD, but I am sure now that that is the problem (and the solution is to reformat to HFS+). Looking at the HD TiVo Files that I have been automatically storing there with TiVo Transfer for the last two weeks or so, I see that a lot of them show a file size of ZERO in List view, but in Get Info shows a ZERO KB file size, but 4,294,954,210 bytes (4GB). If I transfer them to another (HFS) drive, I get a 4GB file, so it looks like I may have lost the last part of a few TiVo shows. All of the files less than 4GB in size transferred to the other drive fine.

 

Seems to me that TivoTransfer should give a warning when a file transferred is incomplete. By all accounts, inTiVo transfer, the truncated files look like they all transferred completely. For that matter, I think there should be some mention in the Toast Documentation that FAT32 volumes will be treated this way, that would've helped me resolve this a lot sooner. Perhaps there is enough in this thread that the next person will find this solution, even without knowing to put FAT32 in the search.

 

So, I am transferring what I can, and when that is finished, I will reformat to HFS+, and I am sure that will resolve everything.

 

Thanks for the help, tsantee.

 

Griffin

[tsantee]

Something isn't right. I'm presuming you're in the Video window because you're trying to make a video DVD. The way Toast works for everyone but you is saving as a disc image results in a .toast image file. Control-click on that image file in the Finder and choosing Mount It from the contextual menu results in a mounted "disc" that plays in DVD Player. The disc image is burned to DVD using the Image File setting in the Copy window.

 

But something is messed up with Toast on your Mac. Look at the bottom of the Toast window with the window empty. Next to the Red button it should read "DVD". If not you can click on that button to change the media type. Just to the left it should read "Space Remaining 4.38 GB." My guess is yours is reading something much less.

 

Another Toast user recently posted a similar issue. Here's that thread. Maybe it will help you find a way to correct the problem.