backup to blu ray drive

English Hardware
#1

Hi;
I have just replaced my real old dvd writer with a new super multi writer. Drive is an LG GGW-H20L. The drive has blu ray burner function.
I would like to be able to write data to 25G media.
My system is Intel duo quad core proc on gigabyte board running at 3Ghz.
OS is opensuse 11.1x64
The drive displays with correct info in YAST hardware and runs existing CD and DVD stuff.
The cdrom info does not show anything above dual layer functionality.
What am I missing??

I have seen some previous posts around this topic to do with kernel version but I should be ok there.??
Any help appreciated.

While I am on I would like to express my appreciation to the guys who work to produce the OS and applications, and to those who support the forums etc.
My own preferences are for the Gnome desktop with compiz fusion and for some of the KDE apps particularly like amarok and k3b keep up the good work.
Thanks

#2

Maybe a not-so-useful reply, but you do realise that blu-ray makes for a poor backup medium pricewise?
It’s extremely expensive, so I hope it’s an one time affair instead of regular backupping, cause that would be much better off on external usb drives.

#3

Hi;
Yeah it is more archiving, and as with the other optical media the price will drop right down as production ramps up.
My old drive was one of the earliest dvd writers so I will replace it with the latest tech and then run it for a few years.
Thanks.
Anyone know what I need to do??
Cheers

#4

I have the same drive and what I have found using 11.1 is that cdrecord can
handle the format however programs like k3b haven’t been upgraded to handle
Blu-Tays. K3b and other burning software use cdrecord to do the actual
recording. OpenSuse 11.1 will read both movies and data Blu-Ray disks.

#5

Thanks for that, will try cdrecord for now. I hope that k3b will soon support it as I find that application really good.
Cheers

#6

I’ve just purchased the same drive, and am having problems with it. Can’t tell if it’s user error, a bad drive, or just the current state of the art on Linux.

Basically, the drive seems to work just fine with CDs and DVDs – I’ve ripped some tracks off of audio CD, and I’ve burned a data DVD with no problems.

I’ve also successfully mounted and read a commercial Blu-Ray disc.

However, when I insert a blank, recordable BR disc, I start having problems. Initially, the hal polling would hit the drive and then hang – System Monitor showed “disk sleep”. I disabled polling for that drive, and moved on. Nero Linux works well with the drive for DVD, but as soon as I put in a blank BR, Nero locks up and I get the same “disk sleep” status.

I then installed kde4-k3b from Packman. It doesn’t lock up, and it correctly reports the disc type and size, but when I attempt to actually burn a disc, it tells me I need to insert appropriate media.

Finally, I tried burning directly from the commandline with growisofs. That seems to work, but so far I’ve wasted two discs by trying to burn more than will actually fit: an .iso built with k3b ran out of space at about 99.2% complete, and a second attempt with “growisofs -Z /dev/sr0 -R -J /a/smaller/bunch/of/files/” appears to have gotten through the actual files OK and then run out of room closing the session.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to either (a) get Nero and hal to not lock up, (b) get k3b to actually do the burn, or (3) better estimate how much “extra” space to leave for overhead?

Or do I just have a bad drive?