How to burn an ISO download of Vista on an iMac?

Question

First of all, I am downloading a legal copy of Vista that I'm getting from Microsoft through the MSDN Academic Alliance as a student. I'm not Jack Sparrowing a copy from Limewire or anything like that.

In order to use it, it has to be burned onto a DVD. My wife's laptop doesn't have a DVD burner, but our iMac does. I also have Toast 6 Titanium, which is capable of burning ISO files. I also know that I can use the Mac's Disc Utility to burn the ISO on a DVD.

Any hints that will avoid my making a bunch of coasters would be greatly appreciated. I'm just worried about something small that would need to be done to insure the disc will work on a PC as an install disc.

Please, no guessing.

Answer 1

Just make sure you burn it as an ISO image. NOT as a data disc, with the ISO file inside. I assume you know this already.

That's basically it. The special options, like making the disc "bootable", are for when you want to make a boot disc from scratch. These settings are taken care for you already in the ISO image. No need to mess with anything, just burn and go.

Also, burn it at 1x. This is critical with data discs, especially OS installation discs. Accelerated writes (2x and up) can produce very small write glitches caused by the speed and the buffer underrun protection. Video DVDs are pretty tolerant with these glitches, but glitches in data DVDs will ruin your day. Burning at 1x will take FOREVER, but it'll assure a proper burn, using only a single DVD.