Control write order (LBA) of files when creating an ISO

[Joe Forster/STA]

In general, there is no solution for your problem: the ISO 9660 (= CD file system) specification explicitly prescribes that directory entries are sorted alphabetically. Read this: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq03.html#S3-46. (It suggests a non-standard solution, too!)

[Justin67]

Joe, thanks for the quick response! So if I want to do this (write in non-alphabetical order), the disk is non-standard. Fortunately, the non-standard disks I have created so far do work in my car player. Unfortunately, the program that I used, and that the CDRFAQ suggests as a solution, is orphaned so I can't use it anymore.

If anyone else knows of a method to create non-standard disks, I would appreciate hearing about it.

[Justin67]

One more followup for anyone who is interested:
I tried out the Linux program mkisofs, which is accessible for Windows through CDR Tools, to see if there was a solution. It turns out not. There is an option for mkisofs (-sort) that will write the file data in a user determined order. I was therefore able to write the MP3 files to an ISO (then to disk) in whatever order of LBA that I wanted. However, it turns out that my in-dash MP3 CD player is following the order given in the directory of the folder, and the -sort option doesn't change this. Using IsoBuster, it's easy to see that while the files have the LBA order I wanted, a sector view of the directory shows the names are still in alphabetical order, and that's what the player uses.

[Joe Forster/STA]

Quite a weird behavior, if you ask me: changing the sort order of directory entries is much easier than moving around file content.