DVD Reads/Does Not Write

English Hardware
1

Happy New Year All!!
Problem: MATSHITA DVD RAM UJ-851S ( rev 1.50) reads dvds and plays audio/movie (.avi,.mp4,mp3,etc) but refuses to burn.

Media: Taiyo Yuden DVD (always excellent!!)
Sony DVD+/-R (w/“AccuCore” technolgy; recent purchase 3 days ago)
Sony CR -R (previously flawless, at least for audio, doc backup)

Notebook: HP Pavilion dv9000 series (dv9310us)

Symptoms: 1. Reads all media
2. Starts burn w/acetoneiso, brasero, nerolinux 4.0.0;
3. Gets to 35% - 90% complete; then each app above reports:
“unspecified error… … …” or words to this effect, asks for log/bug report, etc.

So far, I have about 6-8 ‘coasters’, more than total for past 2 years!!

Anyone aware of a hardware type diagnostic for optical drives, something similar to what we have for hard disks?? As always, all advice greatly appreciated!

Take Care & Have A Safe Day!
—rob

2

Happy New Year All!!
Problem: MATSHITA DVD RAM UJ-851S ( rev 1.50) reads dvds and plays audio/movie (.avi,.mp4,mp3,etc) but refuses to burn.

Media: Taiyo Yuden DVD (always excellent!!)
Sony DVD+/-R (w/“AccuCore” technolgy; recent purchase 3 days ago)
Sony CR -R (previously flawless, at least for audio, doc backup)

Notebook: HP Pavilion dv9000 series (dv9310us)

Symptoms: 1. Reads all media
2. Starts burn w/acetoneiso, brasero, nerolinux 4.0.0;
3. Gets to 35% - 90% complete; then each app above reports:
“unspecified error… … …” or words to this effect, asks for log/bug report, etc.

So far, I have about 6-8 ‘coasters’, more than total for past 2 years!!

Anyone aware of a hardware type diagnostic for optical drives, something similar to what we have for hard disks?? As always, all advice greatly appreciated!

Take Care & Have A Safe Day!
—rob
Rob Happy New Year to You and very sorry to hear about your recording problems. Since openSUSE is able to burn CD and DVD’s, we must assume it is some issue on your PC. The number one cause is most often dirt and dust in the Player, next is bad media, next is crazy setup issues for your present user self and finally, a bad drive.

  1. For a Dirty Drive, buy some spray duster. Open up the drive and liberally blow in the spray air. Now you don’t want to freeze the laser diode or receiver, so be careful, but dust build up can keep a drive from recording when it will place CD’s.
  2. Can you try some new media? Go buy a small quantity of a different brand CD or DVD. Go for quality this time and try a couple and see what happens with them.
  3. Create a whole new user on your PC. You could even make a game of it and create MrMagoo or some other silly name. Log in as this new person and see if the drive works right now. And in the same light even as your old self, check to see if you are a member of the cdrom group. Try this command at a terminal prompt:
sudo /usr/sbin/usermod -A cdrom $USER
  1. Finally, if you get to step number four with no success, you could try reloading openSUSE perhaps, but maybe there is something wrong with your CD/DVD ROM drive that keeps it from making a recording. It is something to think about.

Thank You,

3

On 2011-01-11 22:36, robhwill wrote:
>
> Happy New Year All!!
> Problem: MATSHITA DVD RAM UJ-851S ( rev 1.50) reads dvds and plays
> audio/movie (.avi,.mp4,mp3,etc) but refuses to burn.
>
> Media: Taiyo Yuden DVD (always excellent!!)
> Sony DVD+/-R (w/“AccuCore” technolgy; recent purchase 3 days ago)
> Sony CR -R (previously flawless, at least for audio, doc
> backup)
>
> Notebook: HP Pavilion dv9000 series (dv9310us)
>
> Symptoms: 1. Reads all media
> 2. Starts burn w/acetoneiso, brasero, nerolinux 4.0.0;
> 3. Gets to 35% - 90% complete; then each app above
> reports:
> “unspecified error… … …” or words to this effect, asks for log/bug
> report, etc.

(note that this is nothing related to permissions: it would not even start)

Did this work previously? I mean, same hardware, same operating system? Or
have you changed something? Installation of Linux counts as “change”.

Try real linux apps, forget Nero. Even better, try command line in pure
text mode (runlevel 3). There are two: growisofs and wodim. Any graphical
tool is in fact a frontend to one of those two.

In my case, growisofs fails, wodim works: thus any GUI using growisofs
fails, too.

Ask for details on command line if you need.

> Anyone aware of a hardware type diagnostic for optical drives,
> something similar to what we have for hard disks??

Unfortunately, no.

I try not to use the internal unit of the laptop to burn. All these units
die, and laptop units are more expensive to replace than an external unit
via USB (box + drive; the drive can be replaced with the same box).

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

4

For a GUI tool, try k3b, if the burn fails, you should have access to a nice detailed file to analyse.

5

A couple things to check:

  1. Are you trying to burn at the max rated speed of the media? Try burning at a lower speed (half of the media rated max is a good start). Some lower quality disks will throw an error when recording the faster (outside) tracks at max speed.

  2. When you burn does the CPU and/or I/O wait maxes out?
    That means the file transfer from HD to burner is not smooth, causing buffer underruns, usually in the burner buffer. k3b will show both burner and system buffer status. When they empty you have a buffer underrun.
    You can see the CPU and I/O states in kde or gnome respective system monitors.

6

Thanks all, for your advice. I had not changed anything: settings, OS, etc… Also, I always burn at 4x rather than 8x for good burns. Diagnosis after cleaning unit, using 3 - 4 burn apps, different media is this: My spindle of Sony “AccuCore” DVD’s (1-16x) is junk media! My media preference is Taiyo Yuden, which I discovered is now marketed under the JVC

7

Thanks all, for your advice. I had not changed anything: settings, OS, etc… Also, I always burn at 4x rather than 8x for good burns. Diagnosis after cleaning unit, using 3 - 4 burn apps, different media is this: My spindle of Sony “AccuCore” DVD’s (1-16x) is junk media! My media preference is Taiyo Yuden, which I discovered is now marketed under the JVC
So can we take from this that the problem was bad media or at least media that does not like your DVD burner? Which means you changed the media brand and all works OK now?

Thank You,

8

Yes, jmcdaniel, and thanks to bruno and everyone! Say, is it true what I hear…that Austin, TX is one of the top 3 most ‘connected/.wired’ cities?? The other two seem to consistently rate as Seattle and San Diego.
Thanks, again all…
Take care, and have a safe day!
—rob

9

Yes, jmcdaniel, and thanks to bruno and everyone! Say, is it true what I hear…that Austin, TX is one of the top 3 most ‘connected/.wired’ cities?? The other two seem to consistently rate as Seattle and San Diego.
Thanks, again all…
Take care, and have a safe day!
—rob
Well, a couple of things that I have noticed lately is that the number of high tech firms moving or expanding here has simple been phenomenal. My clients (such as vmware, NVIDIA and Dell in the last month) have been a who’s who in computer hardware and software here in Austin lately. There are even giant billboards asking if you know Linux to call HostGators I think it is called. The town really seems to be jumping with tech activity. It is hard for me to say it is the most connected, but it is VERY connected. I simple have only lived in a few placing in Texas and so it is the best here in Texas, but no way to say the best from everywhere. The cost of living here in Austin is also very reasonable when compare to California for instance, though not the cheapest in Texas. None the less, it is a very busy place right now if you are into high tech.

Thank You,