OpenSuSE 11.1 Live CD burn problem

Hi.
This one might sound a bit strange.
Whenever I download an iso file, I burn it to a DVD, not a CD. Because strangely my comp only manages to read DVDs and not CDs. So if I want Linux Mint, I download the Linux Mint Live CD iso, and burn it onto a DVD, then install it. it has always worked for me so far. All the distros, including, Ubuntu, Mint, CentOS, Fedora, even OpenSuSE 11.0.
However, this time round, I downloaded the Opensuse 11.1 liveCD (gnome), matched the md5sum to see if everything was okay. it was alright and matched.
But when i try to burn it onto a DVD, it just will not. I get errors to the effect that that type of file cannot be installed on the given media.
I tried 3 different computers. with 3 different softwares…even nero express on WinXP. but the same result.
Now i dunno if it is the DVD’s fault coz the blank DVD is read by the machine.

Also, when I burn the same iso onto a CD, it goes fine. but as i said, it is useless to me, as my machine has problems with CDs.

can anyone please shed some light on this?
any kind of help/ information with regards to this is greatly appreciated.
thanks a lot in advance.

since no one else seems to have this particluar problem, i will ask another question:
i cannot burn CDs or DVDs on my machine. it cannot read CDs. it can only read DVDs.
now i am not sure exactly when this problem started occurring. but i noticed it after i upgraded my RAM from 512 mb to 1.5 gb.
any suggestions on what could be wrong. can cd/dvd burning/ reading be affected by a RAM upgrade?
can anyone provide me with a checklist to figure out what is wrong?
any help/suggestions?
i hav searched through google and almost all linux forums, but to no avail. :frowning:
this is my last hope.
thanks.

How old is that writer?? Does it not only fail to read CDs but also burn them? (older writers got two lasers instead of one). I never had problem burning LiveCD onto a DVD i always do as the reading times are A LOT faster when run from DVD than CD. I stopped using CDs as they are too slow for me now. I only use DVDs and even though it’s a problem for You i recommend switching completely onto DVD. Regarding that Gnome LiveCD, i never encountered such thing but have You tried convert it into another type of image like bin and then burn it??

Forgot You can’t burn at all so i assume it’s quite old?? And the CD laser could have failed?

thank you for the reply.

my laptop was bought in 2006…so yeah it is old, considering the speed at which technology is moving…
i have not tried converting it to bin and then burning for two simple facts:
a) i did not know one coulddo that. (thanks for that input :slight_smile: )
b) i do not know how to do that.

i should go to a store to find out if my DVD drive (now that you point it out) is okay or not. maybe then, i could burn and read both CDs and DVDs.
and yes, i prefer DVDs too.

one more question…is it possible to change the drive itself in a laptop? is there any other way to fix it…i mean can one change the lasers etc.?

i apologise if these questions are a bit silly…but i do not know anything about computer hardawre.
please be patient with me.

thanks once again for your response.

99.9% sure it’s a hardware problem. It’s not possible to repair the laser, probably not even change the pickup block (where the lasers are mounted), due to the difficulty in aligning it correctly again without special calibration tools. Your easier/faster/probably cheaper solution is to change the drive, if you can get a new one.

okay. i will get that checked asap.
but how does one explain me not being able to write the iso file to a DVD on three different machines? :open_mouth:

Is the md5sum correct?

yes indeed it is. i have already checked that thrice already. and the md5sum shouldn’t change while copying the files to any number of folders… :slight_smile:

I have an idea, run k3b from terminal and try to burn that iso to DVD, look for errors .

I’d bet on bad/substandard media. Even if it is the same brand you used successfully before, it gets “different” with every batch the resselers get - different plant, different materials, falsifications, etc. Happens to me occasionally, a certain brand that always burned easily at 8x, after resupply would start to trow errors and require more CPU, and only work at 4x. Try burning at slower speeds. Or try a DVD-RW.