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purpleinnej

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 8, 2010
63
2
Yigo, GU
I received an xray on CD from my dr. Another dr. was able to view the images, so I know the CD is functional. It was burned (and viewed by other dr.) in Windows. When I put it in my macbook pro (2009, running Mac OS X 10.11), I get the error "You inserted a blank CD, what do you want to do?"

Things I've tried:
--Using terminal to show hidden files. CD opened in Finder still appears to be blank
--Downloaded OsiriX (lite) but since I can't find the actual file to open, this does me no good
--Downloaded Wine Bottler (and Wine) but I don't fully understand how it works, and again, I can't see the .exe file (presumably there is one) to use this to run it

Any suggestions on at least being able to SEE the files? I feel like once I can at least see them there, I can manage to do something with them.

Caveat - I don't want to buy a Windows license, so running Parallels or Boot Camp is out. In the 7 years I've had this macbook, this is only the second time I've truly NEEDED windows for something, so it isn't worth it to add another OS to my machine. (The first time was an MRI and I used my husband's PC to get the images and emailed them to myself, but he is out of town at the moment.)
 

Gav2k

macrumors G3
Jul 24, 2009
9,216
1,608
Did he close the disc properly? He can view it as it was created on that machine.
[doublepost=1465869679][/doublepost]With that said wtf is your doctor using antiquated tech to provide you an image. What's wrong with email?!
 

treekram

macrumors 68000
Nov 9, 2015
1,849
411
Honolulu HI
Typically, a data CD burned on Windows will be readable on the Mac and for something like an X-Ray, sensible people would use a common format - PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, etc. that could be viewed on multiple operating systems. Reasons why this isn't working in your case include:

1) Your doctor used some extension to the typical ISO-9660 file system that isn't supported on the Mac.
2) Your doctor used some file system not used by 99% of the systems that have CD/DVD readers.
3) Your drive is having issues, either in general, or with the CD specifically.
4) The CD media is finicky, working with two doctors' drives but not yours.

If you haven't replaced the drive and don't use it often, I would think your drive is the issue. My experience with my Mac systems over the past 15 years is that the HDD and the SuperDrive are the components most likely to go bad. Try it out in another computer. If the CD can't be read in another computer, contact your doctor's office and see if there's anything special required to read the CD - if there is, there would have been others that would have had the same problem and the doctor/staff would have answered the same question before.

Nothing that you've said suggests that Windows is required to read the CD - unless your doctor had instructions saying there was a .exe file that is needed to read the X-Ray (it's unclear from what you stated). Also, if the disk wasn't properly closed (finalized), the second doctor would not have been able to read the CD.
 

treekram

macrumors 68000
Nov 9, 2015
1,849
411
Honolulu HI
If you know your optical drive is good or you don't have access to another, see this thread. In particular, see @Fishrrman's post #6.

The thread referenced has an explanation of why the OP was mentioning OsiriX and Wine Bottler so thanks for bringing that up. However, the CD was likely prepared using a standard-ish ISO-9660 file system so I think there's still a drive or CD media issue (works in some drives but not others), otherwise, the files should have shown up.
 

997440

Cancelled
Oct 11, 2015
938
664
The thread referenced has an explanation of why the OP was mentioning OsiriX and Wine Bottler so thanks for bringing that up. However, the CD was likely prepared using a standard-ish ISO-9660 file system so I think there's still a drive or CD media issue (works in some drives but not others), otherwise, the files should have shown up.
Thanks for the information. I don't know how I missed it in the OP; oops.
 
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