As a new Mac user I wanted to copy a CD and I thought it would be easy. After trying everything I knew (which at this point wasn’t much) I couldn’t figure out how to do it. With all of my Mac friends away from their Instant Messenger or not signed on, I started the task of searching on how to do it. Many sites claim to have a “how to,” but they were not much help and were way outdated. So I found one that was fairly good and explaining how to burn a CD with the OS X operating system. I decided immediately that I wanted to take some screenshots and post a tutorial on how to do it, so others didn’t have to search as long as I did.
Let’s get started!
Insert the CD that you want to copy
Step 2:
- Open Finder
- Open the Applications folder
- Open the Utilities folder
- Now start the Disk Utility Program
Step 3:
Once Disk Utility is running:
- Click on the File Menu
- Choose New
- Now click on Disk Image from Folder
Step 4:
At this point the Finder window will appear.
- Select the CD you want to copy.
- Then click on the Image button
Step 5:
Now a dialog box will appear titled “New Image From Folder”. Make your settings like:
- In the Save As Box, name the CD what you wan’t
- In the Where Box, choose Desktop
- In the Image Format Box, choose DVD/CD Master
- Now click Save
Now a new file is being created and placed on your Desktop. It will have the name you gave it from the Save As Box from Step 5 and it will have a “.cdr” file extension. This procedure may take a few minutes to complete, so just sit tight as your Mac finishes creating the file. This file is a disk image of your CD. (example… New_CD.cdr)
(Note: keep the Disk Utility program open, as we will come back to it in Step 7.)
Step 6:
Now that the disk image of your CD is complete, eject the CD.
Step 7:
Go back to the Disk Utility program. You should now see in the listings at the left the disk image of your CD (usually at the bottom of the list). Click on it once.
Step 8:
Now in the upper left corner of the Disk Utility program click on the Burn button.
Step 9:
The rest is just a matter of following the directions by inserting a blank CD-R when prompted and then just waiting for it to complete.
Congratulations you now have a copy of your CD!
Update: My research at this point is that the same procedure will work for a DVD. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Disclaimer: Keep in mind FocusedTutorials.com in no way condones the pirating or unauthorized duplication of CD’s or DVD’s. Please use this tutorial responsibly.
December 15th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Looks good James, now give me your macbook so I can try it!
December 17th, 2006 at 12:05 am
Does this work for DVD’s as well??
December 17th, 2006 at 8:17 am
I’ll have to look into it. I am not sure, as I was doing this for a CD. Excellent Question.
December 19th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
According to my research it appears that this is the same procedure you would follow for DVD’s as well. I have updated the tutorial to reflect this as well. Thanks.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Nice work James…saved me a lot of time playing around. I was a Mac guy from way back who have spent most of my years on a PC. Recently got a MacBook Pro running both! Some things just are easier on Windows!
January 11th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
No problem. Glad it could help !
January 21st, 2007 at 5:14 am
Awesome James. Love your detailed explanation. Thanks!
March 7th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Thanks for the instructions! It worked perfectly.
March 18th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Very helpful! I was very lucky to find this tutorial. Thanks!
March 19th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
One might add that CDs burned this way do not contain a filesystem ms windows would be able to read. To get around this make a hybrid image out of the .cdr file before burning.
hdiutil makehybrid -o targetimage.iso sourceimage.cdr
April 11th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
It said it copied successfully, but will not play on any of my cd players, Any ideas of what the problem could be?
April 24th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Erika,
You must have left the default format while making the copy of the CD/DVD. Change the access format from compressed to read-write
April 24th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Oops, quick correction, Erika. I meant ‘read-only’ format.
BTW, thanks for the help, James! I don’t know why, I couldn’t manage to do as I used to before by just selecting the CD/DVD and pressing ‘New Image’. Thanks to Google, I found your guidelines.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Ok, here’s my issue…I’ve been a frequent user of the disk utility to copy personal DVD’s (I’m a film student and often make copies of my projects) I currently have a project that is 2 1/2 hours long and 32gigs in its .MOV format. I have made a playable dual layer DVD via Toast 7 and am trying to create a disc image of it in the Disk Utility. I selected it as read/write and it made it to the end then gave me an Input/Output error. I am now trying again while using the CD/DVD master option, however I am not familiar with the “.cdr” file extension. Can anyone tell me if this is a mountable file type AND is it only for MAC? Will this effect playback on consumer DVD players as well as Windows?
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Mac The Ripper: http://www.mactheripper.org/
Handbrake: http://handbrake.m0k.org/
Mac The Ripper will rip a entire DVD to a folder for DVD re-burning.
Handbrake will rip it to an avi or mov file.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Yeah I’ve used that in the past, I’ll give it a try again, thanks.
May 13th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Strange, to see these guidelines here, as they can be found in Disk Utilities Help files!
June 14th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Just want to thank you for putting this up here! MAC should add this as a link in their Disc Utility HELP section!
June 15th, 2007 at 7:27 am
@Nobody uses… - I would have used the help file if only I knew what program to read the help file for. At the time of writing this tutorial, I wanted to copy a CD and didn’t have a clue where to start. I am sure the others getting benefit from this are the same way.
@sylvia - thanks for the compliment.
May 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Just want to say thanks you for putting this up here,It helped very much.