International backups.

March 13, 2006 3:11 PM

I'm trying to burn a backup that has a ton of files with Japanese names. I'm using Windows XP SP2 and Nero 6.6, and anytime I try to create a DVD with any of the ISO (or UDF) settings it forces the filenames to their short filenames, such as "Docume~1". Anyone know how I can record this?
posted by LukeyBoy to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Have you tried the Nero BackItUp program? You might also try putting the files in one big compressed file, too. That may have better luck preserving file names.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 3:17 PM on March 13, 2006

Response by poster: BackItUp seems to have the same problem. I was thinking about using a big RAR file, but it's backups of my wife's photos and ideally she'd like to be able to browse the collection directly off of the disc.
posted by LukeyBoy at 3:28 PM on March 13, 2006

Even though the Joliet CD filesystem has supported Unicode file names for eleven years, support for it in burning software is slowly trickling in. Read this CDFreaks thread on the issue for some software suggestions.
posted by zsazsa at 3:56 PM on March 13, 2006

Response by poster: I had no idea support for Unicode filenames was this horrible; I think what I'll do is build the ISO image on a Linux system and copy it to the machine with the burner.
posted by LukeyBoy at 4:13 PM on March 13, 2006

You could put them in a zip file. XP can browse inside of zip files natively nowadays.
posted by team lowkey at 6:12 PM on March 13, 2006

Instead of using an RAR, why not use a ZIP? I use "Thumbs Plus" for image viewing, and it can thumbnail and display images inside of ZIP files, treating the ZIP file as if it was a directory.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:13 PM on March 13, 2006

Response by poster: I'm not sure about using a multi-gigabyte Zip file in Windows explorer, I may try that and see if it works. I'd rather not depend on Thumbs Plus or any other external tool for viewing the photos.

Building the image under Linux works for what it's worth.
posted by LukeyBoy at 7:22 PM on March 13, 2006

I'm pretty sure that when Windows browses inside zip files (treating them as directories) it actually unzips it (at least the files that you are viewing) locally. I don't think that would be a perfect solution if you had a multi-gig zip file with thousands of photos.
posted by antifuse at 2:14 AM on March 14, 2006

Nah, it just reads the file listing inside the archive and displays it to you. It only uncompresses a file when you actually open it. That does mean that you won't get the preview in the left pane when looking through a directory of pictures, but it's not going to unzip the whole thing and fill up your disk, either.

Building the ISO in linux is probably the best solution. But for most people, just zipping it will get the job done.
posted by team lowkey at 2:13 PM on March 14, 2006

Zip programs are another thing where Unicode support sucks. Even the built-in zipped folder support in Windows doesn't support it correctly. This is what happens when trying to zip a file with Unicode Japanese characters in the filename. 7zip can add files with Unicode names to archives, but cannot extract them. Other programs will let you extract them, as long as the actual zip archive's name isn't Unicode. And then, the file names will be gibberish.

Insane.
posted by zsazsa at 4:20 PM on March 14, 2006

Response by poster: For the record (specifically Google) I found that CyberLink Power2Go under Windows will burn unicode filenames with no problems.
posted by LukeyBoy at 6:55 AM on March 16, 2006