NTFS vs. ISO (Joliet) CD? Files cannot be copied to CD

Factual Questions
1

My girlfriend’s PC has a CD-burner and she’s taken to using CD media to back up various folders using the right-click / “copy to G:” <where G:\ is the CDRW drive, obviously> mechanism.

It’s frustrating to use because for various files the PC throws up an error message stating that such-and-such a file could not be copied. The files in question the last go-around are all Microsoft Word documents of no unusual size, and not currently open in MSWord.

Now, as a Mac person, I’ve occasionally had the experience of trying to copy a file from a Mac to FAT32-formatted media and getting error messages because the file name, legal on my machine, isn’t legal under FAT32 — question marks in the file name, slashes in the file name, that kind of thing. That has me thinking this must be something similar.

Her regular hard drive is NTFS-formatted (it’s an XP box). Are there files and/or total file paths that could be legal on an NTFS volume but illegal on a standard default-format PC CDROM (I assume that means ISO-9660 with Joliet extensions)? The raw file names don’t seem to be spectacularly different from files that went onto the CD w/o problem, but (correct me if I’m wrong) the file system has a maximum number of characters for the entire file PATH… is this limit possibly different for ISO file system than for NTFS?

Sample files with full paths that exist w/o prob on the hard disk but would not burn to CD:

C:\Documents and Settings\Dottye\My Documents\ALL MEDICAL CONDITIONS\THYROID ALL CURRENT AND HISTORICAL ON MY TREATMENT\THYROID LAB RESULTS AND MED CHANGES\PRIOR MED ADJUSTMENTS AND SCHEDULES\HEALTHCHECK LABS 2003 2002 2001.doc

C:\Documents and Settings\Dottye\My Documents\ALL MEDICAL CONDITIONS\THYROID ALL CURRENT AND HISTORICAL ON MY TREATMENT\THYROID LAB RESULTS AND MED CHANGES\discussion possible that T3 in Armour is less bioavailable than Cytomel.doc

C:\Documents and Settings\Dottye\My Documents\ALL THINGS THYROID\WWW MED INFO AND PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES\FOREST LABS OTHER MEDS MORE LUCRATIVE FOR THEM THAN ARMOUR\FDA Approves New Alzheimer’s Drug Namenda distributed by Forest Laboratories Inc.doc

:confused:

2

Everything you wanted to know about Joliet but were afraid to ask

http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/jolspec.html#allowed

3

I’ve seen my CD burning software choke on files whose total path on the CD is more than 255 characters long. Given your samples, that could be the problem.

4

Unless you’re copying the same path, there shouldn’t be a problem. What I mean is, if it’s only the file going to the root drive of the CD (i.e., path is just G:\filename), then I don’t see a problem with the first file. The 2nd and 3rd files have filenames that are alone more than 64 characters, which may be the limit.

According to the link above, the maximum directory+file name size is only 30 bytes for ISO 9660 and 128 bytes for Joliet. Also, the spaces in both directory &/or filenames may be a problem.

5

Also, Windows itself can go bonkers if the total path for any file is over 260 characters.

6

Stick to 8-character file names. They always work.[sup]*[/sup] Remember the good old days, with DOS? :slight_smile:

File names might not be the best place to write the actual document. Put that inside the body – it can be searched, too.

[sup]*[/sup]If the path isn’t too long.

7

I suspect your friend is using the Windows XP native CD burning utility, which in my opinion sucks. I suggest using a better CD burning software such as Nero Burning ROM. It allows (among other things) relaxation of the 255 character limit.

8

You might also compress the files to an archive file that has a short filename. That might allow you to leave the folder and filenames as they are.

To answer your question, though, I believe your filenames and paths are exceeding the limits of the CD format.

9

She was trying to burn the entirety of “My Documents” meaning that at least most of the total path would have to be legal on the CDROM.

Thanks, I’d sort of figured it was total-path character-length, since the files didn’t have oddball characters in the file names or anything.