A LITTLE BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Since the advent of CD-ROM, both Macs and PCs have been able to read and record CD-ROMs in ISO 9660 format. A CD burned on a Windows XP system uses ISO 9660 format by default (this format bundles the CDFS file system) and can be recognized by Mac OS X.

Older versions of Windows use other formats and file systems, such as the original DOS file system. When Windows 95 was released, Microsoft defined an extension to the ISO 9660 standard called Joliet. Mac OS X's Disc Burner utility creates ISO 9660 CD-R's compliant with the Windows Joliet format.

Another format accepted by the Macintosh platform is FAT or FAT 32 standard. The Macintosh operating system is not able to read disks formatted with the NTFS standard used by Windows 2000 and XP. When using these operating systems, it is safer to continue to choose FAT or FAT 32 formatting for removable disks intended for mounting on Macs.

Note: If you are uncertain which format to choose, it is best to select the ISO 9660 format, because it is the most universal between all computer platforms.


Updated: June 2004