Burn CD's and DVDs with Powershell

Austin — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:47:00 GMT

Included with Microsoft Vista is a new API for scripting against optical drives; the Image Mastering API version 2 or IMAPI2. This makes it possible to retrieve information from optical storage media like CDs and DVDs and write to them.

The story around the IMAPI and what you can do with it can be found on msdn but what brought it to my attention was the Scriptcenter newsletter this week where a VB sample of how to burn CDs/DVDs using the Image Mastering API was described. Yep, if we can do it with VB there's got to be a PoSHer way to do the same thing so I gave it a go and over a couple of hours managed to get my version to work.

Who needs ISO burning tools anymore ay? Roll your own!

My modification of the script accepts one argument which is the path to the ISO file and it barfs if a wrong path is given.

The assumption is that the CD/DVD writer is first optical drive on the system (If it's not, change the msftdiscMaster2 index used in the msftdiscrecorder2 initializedrecorder method ).

Minor error checking has been thrown in to ensure a valid path to an ISO file is provided and that the disc is blank.

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param(
[string]$path = $( throw "Please Specify path to an ISO file")
)
# Set binary file type
Set-Variable -name adFileTypeBinary -value 1 -option Constant

# Test if path exists else fail
if (Test-Path -path $path -isValid)
{
$isoFile = $path

# Create disc master to burn to optical drives
$obm = New-Object -comobject "imapi2.msftdiscMaster2"

    # Create a DiscRecorder object for the specified burning device
    $obr = New-Object -comobject "imapi2.msftdiscrecorder2"
    $obr.initializediscrecorder( $obm.item(0) )
    $dataWriter = New-Object -comobject "IMAPI2.MsftDiscFormat2Data"
    $dataWriter.Recorder = $obr
    $dataWriter.ClientName = "ISOTest1"

    # Write stream to disc using the specified recorder
    Write-Host "Writing to disc..."
    $objStream = New-Object -comobject "ADODB.Stream"
    $objStream.open()
    $objStream.type = $adFileTypeBinary
    $objStream.LoadFromFile( "$isoFile" )

    # Check disk is blank else fail
    $addr = $dataWriter.NextWritableAddress
        if ( $addr = "0" )
            {
                $dataWriter.Write( $objStream )
                Write-Host "Done"
            }
        else
            {
                Write-Host "Cannot write to disk" }
            }

else
    {
    Write-Host "A valid ISO file was not found"
    }

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The Scriptcenter site shows other examples in VB and they can all be converted to Powershell with very little effort.

Binaries for for versions of IMAPIv2 for other platforms can be obtained here:

Image Mastering API v2.0 for Windows XP

Image Mastering API v2.0 for Windows Sever 2003

Image Mastering API v2.0 for Windows XP x64 Edition

Image Mastering API v2.0 for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition

Austin Osuide's Windows Server and Random Rants Blog : Fun, Windows Vista

Burn CD's and DVDs with Powershell