JPG from PC to External HD to Mac burned to CD, back to PC?

We recently changed our family computer from an old Dell to a new iMac (well, new in November of '05)… in the process, we have maybe 4,000 JPG picture files that were on our old Dell. We copied those out to an external hard drive with no problem. We then copied the files from the external drive onto our new iMac. No problems again, we were able to look at all the pics through iPhoto, edit them, etc.

Then, after stumbling on how to figure it out, I burned a bunch of the JPG files from the iMac to CD. My wife was going to deliver them to her family in China when she travels there later this week. However, just to test the CD, I tried to then put the CD back into the old Dell and it didn't work… would not recognize the CD. Thinking it was maybe the old PC, my wife brought the CD into work, where she got a similar error on a much newer computer.

Any ideas on what is wrong?

Rare nowadays, but still occurs. Or you did a bad burn; or you might have forgotten to finalize the burn.

It should not be a problem with any of the computers. It might be, but the easiest, most simply first step is to burn another CD, from a different batch of CDs, and see if it works, which it probably will.

Once you've eliminated the chance it's a shitty CD or a poorly done burn, then start looking at other issues.

What do you mean by that? I thought it was just a matter of clicking "burn"?

I use CDMaster, and when I'm making data CDs (backing up pictures, for instance), I need to tell the thing when I'm done adding files so that it can finalize the disc.

But when using, say, iTunes to make a music CD, I don't need to finalize, since iTunes does it automatically.

All depends on the software, and what you're doing.

I don't remember it asking to finalize. It did say disk was full.

however, if it said the disk was full, that could mean that you overfilled it, and that it couldn't even finish it.

that's the only thing I can think of, since jpeg is a cross-platform format.

I've transferred images burned on the Mac to PC's with no problem.

Put in the disc, a dialog will come up, just follow the directions (remember to name it) and it will mount the disc. Double click it and it will open. Just drag and drop the images from the external into the CD. When they are transferred just drag the CD to the trash to burn.

Maybe go back to the source.

I don't know. I can barely turn this thing on.

They're in all 3 places - the Mac, the PC and the external HD.

Sadly (perhaps "pathetically" is a better choice of words), Windows machines still cannot read Mac CDs straight from the burn. Check the program for a compatibility option and try reburning.

So, it seems my only choice would be to take my external HD and bring it to a place that burns CDs for the PC? My 5 year old Dell has just a CD Player.