reading of cd's (iso joliet format) on XPClosed

Question

Hello,  I am a pensioner trying to work out these computers &  wonder if you could help me with the problem I have of reading cd's.   In 2001 I burnt a lot of family tree photos on my desktop comp that had Windows ME, they were burnt on cd-r's & were in volumes, I know this because when you right clicked on cd in my computer & clicked on  properties it came up with a little window that had 2 tabs, 1 being general, the other volumes & some cds would have as many as 6 volumes & you could click on whatever volume & see all the previous items that had been added.  Now I have a new XP computer & when I try to read all these volumes it only gives me that last volume added.  I know the photos I need are on the disc as I have seen them many times on the ME before it crashed.  I don't want to lose all these photos as I cannot replace them (the originals are scattered over the many places I have visited to get them)  on my old ME when you clicked on properties the file system was an iso joliet now when you click on it it is a cdfs.  I have been to a lot of computer shops to ask for help but I think they think I am confused as they haven't heard of what I am trying to say.   Looking forward to a reply    Thank you   RP

xpcman · Accepted Answer

Tell the kids working in computer stores that they no nothing about how a computer really works. I used to tell people that I only worked on computers that cost move than one million dollars. Now I have a 3 lb laptop that is more powerfull than that 1st million dollar computer over 40 years ago.

You may have had a non-Windows CD burning program that allowed CDs to span volumes and basic Windows XP does not understand this.   Try to Google "spanned volumes" for info or download and try some of the recovery programs.  

I include some general info about the Joliet CD standard. 
Joliet is an extension of the ISO 9660 standard that Microsoft developed for use with Windows 95 and later. Joliet enables CDs to be recorded using filenames up to 64 characters long, including spaces and other characters from the Unicode international character set. Joliet also preserves an 8.3 alias for those programs that can't use the longer filenames.

In general, Joliet features the following specifications:

    *      File or directory names can be up to 64 Unicode characters (128 bytes) in length.
    *      Directory names can have extensions.
    *      Directories can be deeper than eight levels.
    *      Multisession recording is inherently supported. 

Tip

Because Joliet supports a shorter path than Windows 9x and newer versions, you might have difficulties mastering a Joliet-format CD that contains extremely long pathnames. I recommend you shorten folder names in the file structure you create with the CD mastering software to avoid problems. Unfortunately, many CD mastering programs don't warn you about a pathname that is too long until after the burning process starts.

Due to backward-compatibility provisions, systems that don't support the Joliet extensions (such as older DOS systems) should still be capable of reading the disc. However, it will be interpreted as an ISO 9660 format using the short names instead.

Note

A bit of trivia: "Chicago" was the code name used by Microsoft for Windows 95. Joliet is the town outside of Chicago where Jake was locked up in the movie The Blues Brothers.

xpcman · Answer

one thing you could try is to RIGHT CLICK on the CD drive and then choose EXPLORE the resulting window just might show all the folders/files.  I assume you were double clicking the CD drive.

Reading of cd's (iso joliet format) on XP

2 responses

Similar discussions

Subscribe To Our Newsletter!