Let it first be said that I hate, hate HATE Windows VISTA. It has given me nothing but grief, but it came loaded with this desktop, and the software I have won’t install on my XP netbook.
I’ve just purchased some new software, and when I pop the DVDs into my drive, it gives me a logo in ‘computer’ which, judging by the little red apple, leads me to believe that Windows believes that it is a mac formatted disc. Such is not the case. In the past, I had this problem with Dragon Naturally speaking, which led me to find a computer it worked on, copy the files to an ISO, and then mount the iso onto my current desktop in order to successfully install the software which I own.
I shouldn’t have to do this, and frankly, it’s a real nuisance. Has anyone else suffered from this before? How did you fix it?
It is possible to format a data DVD or CD as Windows, Mac OS X, or any other file system… but I think that CDs at least have their own file system that is accessible to everyone. That doesn;t mean that the data on the disc is compatible with your machine…
In Mac OS X land, I often download Mac programs as .dmg files, which are Mac disc images. Perhaps the CD or DVD is written as one of these?
Cubase 5 LE, and Finale 2009. Two separate music programs that won’t install. I can look at the files through the explorer, but I can’t fire up the .exe files, or copy anything to the hard drive. It’s…weird…
CDs can be ISO 9660, ISO with Joliet extensions (most common), HFS (Macintosh), or older formats you don’t see so often any more such as High Sierra. Generally speaking, on the Mac you only see HFS/HFS+ format for software installation media. Most CDs are cross platform; you only need an HFS format (or an HFS partition) if you want Mac users to see the Mac installer and the Windows users to see the Windows installer and, in both cases, not to see the wrong one at all. Or if you need to BOOT your Mac from the CD in which case it absolutely has to be HFS+ format.
DVDs are a newer item and thus fewer formats. The common one is simply called ‘DVD format’, the format in which movie DVDs are written. (Data DVDs can use that same format, no problem). The Mac operating system has been distributed on BOOTABLE DVDs ever since 10.4 and bootable DVDs, like bootable CDs, need to be HFS+.
I have no freaking idea why your PC would think that a regular DVD was Mac formatted. However, your PC, in the absence of 3rd party software, should not see a Mac formatted DVD at all, so you must have a 3rd party software package such as MacDrive installed. And perhaps it is buggy.
So that’s how they do that! The installer disc for my spectrophotometer software shows the Mac installer when I open it under Mac OS X, and the Windows installer when I open it under Windows. I was going crazy trying to figure out how it did it.
I’d actually suggest copying off all your data from your Mac iPod (including everything in hidden folders–make sure they are visible), and then upgrading/wiping it on your PC, which will make it a PC formatted iPod. Then copy all the files back. If you got 100% all of your files, your iPod will be exactly the same (unless something has changed since the last time I did this.)
Macs can read PC formatted iPods perfectly well. In fact, I’m surprised there even are HFS (Mac) formatted iPods now–I thought Apple said they were going to use FAT32 (PC format) for all of them.
(If you need better instructions, I’ll have to leave that to someone else. I am not familiar enough with Vista or the Mac OS to give step-by-step instructions. But I do believe there is no reason to keep your iPod HFS formatted, especially if you plan on using it on PCs.)
I am familiar with the mechanics of this, but thanks for the advice! Yes, all of my music is on my Mac Mini, as a jukebox is about all that hunk of (expletive) is good for. So, chock that off to laziness on my part, I suppose!
I’ve managed through no small miracle to uninstall the offending Xplay3 from Windows 7 (I upgraded in the hope of making my PC run better; please don’t laugh too hard ). The red apple logo is gone! However, my discs are no closer to working.
Now, I can go into the explorer, and see all the files that are on there. However, clicking ANY of these files reveal an error message of various stripes, basically telling me that although the computer knows what files are on the disc, it’s not having a go of actually reading them and accessing them.
I went to the HP technical support chat, whereby I was told by a Mr. Prasanta that I needed to “install Adobe Acrobat” in order to get the file which was not opening to work. After about 20 minutes of my hands trembling in rage, I managed to explain to him that it was all the files on two separate DVDs that would not open, and that it had nothing to do with what the file type was.
But I digress. I just needed to get that out.
I’m still adamant that it’s an issue with a a driver or some variety of software. The drive runs audio CDs, data CDs, and video DVDs. My data DVDs run on my laptop. Maybe this should be a separate thread, but if anyone wants to offer a suggestion on here, I’m allll ears at this point.
So, some 8 months or so after the fact, I realized that Xplay’s registry files were still on my computer. I grabbed them by their little bunny ears and sent them to registry file heaven, whereby I regained complete control of my DVD-drive. Just thought I’d bump this thread, should anyone anywhere have this problem in the future.
). The red apple logo is gone! However, my discs are no closer to working.