MacOS – Need to burn FAT32 CD from Snow Leopard

cd-burningfat32macossnow leopardwindows

Please tell me how to burn a FAT32 CD under Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I have tried multiple approaches, including creating a FAT32 .dmg properly sized for the disc, and burning from the Finder or from Disk Utility. The thread at How to burn Windows compatible CD on Mac OS X Mountain Lion did not help me.

The image correctly shows up as type FAT32 in Disk Utility, but the resulting disc invariably shows up as type Mac OS Extended. I am trying to do this because some Windows users are reporting not seeing anything on the disc I sent them. It was my understanding that the Mac automatically creates CDs that can be read by both OS X and Windows.

Best Answer

You cannot make a FAT32 CD. Windows does not use that format for CD/DVDs.

Normally, when burning a bunch of files, both Mac and Windows use ISO 9660 (Joliet) for CDs and Universal Disk Format (UDF) for DVD media. Format is automatically chosen once media is detected.

Also there is no need to make an image first. You just

  • select the files in Finder
  • right click on the selected files
  • select Burn.
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