Macintosh CD burning: “some images can not be saved because the originals can not be found”

Question

I'm a PC.

My client, however, is a Mac.

Said client is trying to burn me a disc of images so that I can use it in a site I'm developing for them. Source of these images are CD-R's.

Client says they are copying the files/pics to their desktop and trying to burn a disc of them from there. Client is getting an error message to the effect of "some images can not be saved because the originals can not be found".

I am not at the client's computer and I have limited Macintosh experience.

Were I to guess, I'd say that the client somehow copied shortcut links to their desktop instead of the actual files, and so when they try to burn the files/pics to a CD (the burning program they're using - maybe one built into Mac OSX? - seems to be cognizant of the fact that they are images) the discs where the files originated are obviously not the ones in the drive.

So,

1. Am I right and is the client just copying shortcuts instead of the files/images?
2. If not, any idea what else could be happening?
3. Bearing in mind that I am not a Mac guy and am not at the client's site, how should I tell them to proceed so that they're copying them like they want to?

Answer 1

I am a Mac and I would say that you are right about shortcuts. May be the files are on a removable device and the computer can't find where the originals are when the device is unplugged or ejected.

Anyway, the Mac way of burning data is to insert a CD in the Mac then to drag files to be copied on to the CD icon which appears on the Desktop and finally to click on Burn button.

I don't understand the intermediate step of copying files on the Desktop.

Answer 2

(in Mac OS, they're called aliases and they differ from shortcuts in that they're able to handle the target file being moved or renamed although not when it moves to another disc volume.)

It'd be harder to drag from the source CD-Rs and end up with the alias files instead of the real thing (as you have to hold down both Command and Option to do it.)

Two possibilities come to mind, for what someone might be doing:

• Perhaps they already have Aliases pointing to the CD-Rs (classic Mac OS would say 'Please insert disc ' when attempting to access them), and could be attempting to directly burn those Aliases to disc.
• Another possibility is that the CD-Rs have both the originals and aliases to them, and they're just selecting the wrong things on the disc.

Answer 3

Your client likely dragged the file into the DVD burn folder (which makes a shortcut). Tell them to instead hold alt/option while dragging the file(s) into the burn folder.

This will correct your problem.