Learn about "buffer underrun" issues that can happen when you burn a CD or DVD on your Mac. Some of this information is specific to Mac OS X and internal Apple recordable optical drives.
Tip: Many newer optical drives contain buffer-underrun protection. To find out if your optical drive has buffer underrun protection, open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) and type this command: "drutil info" . If you see "BUFE" in the returned results, then your drive has buffer underrun protection. Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4 or later may report buffer underrun errors for burns that have failed for other reasons. If your drive has buffer underrun protection, and you see a buffer underrun error, the most common cause is dirty or scratched media.
"Buffer underrun"? What's that mean?
In a nutshell, it means the memory buffer (or temporary data storage location) inside your burner is not getting data from your hard drive fast enough to burn the disc.
If this happens with Mac OS X in the Finder, iTunes, or another burning application, you might see "Buffer underrun error" or "Unknown Error -2147352480".
When this happens, the burn may fail and the partially-burned disc can be unusable.
What can cause "buffer underrun" issues?
- Your computer is trying to do too many things at once (for example, too many applications are open and using the Mac's resources).
- Your hard drive isn't supplying data to the burner fast enough.
- The disc you're burning may be scratched, dirty, or not work with your disc burner.
- The hard drive is very fragmented (though this is unlikely with Mac OS X or later).
In some cases, the optical drive itself might have a hardware issue, but this is not as likely.
What can I do if I run into this?
- The first and easiest thing you can do is don't use too many (or any) other applications when burning a disc.
- Restart your Mac and try again.
- Try using a different blank disc or a lower burn speed. Sometimes you might need to try a completely different type of writable media. See Factors That Affect Writing to or Reading From Optical Media.
- For Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3 or later and CD-R, CD-RW, or DVD-R media, see these tips.
- In some cases, installing more RAM or a faster hard drive can help.