Problems Reading Burned DVDs

A few years ago I purchased a Presario nx9420 when I was getting in to Linux because it was fully supported under the Novell/OpenSUSE operating system. I’ve had this ongoing issue since then, but only now is getting to be a major headache. Whenever I try to insert a DVD that I have burned, the system will not read it. The model DVDRAM is gma-4082n.

This is where it gets strange. I can read both commercial and burned CDs without any problem. I can read commercial DVDs without any problems. I can insert, I’m on my 3rd different brand burnable DVD, and it will go through an entire burn operation without any problems. After the burn when I put the DVD back in, it will not read the disc that it just burned, but I can put it in a WinXP computer and it reads without any problems. I’m trying to upgrade to OpenSUSE 11.1, which I have downloaded the DVD iso and burned it on a XP machine, which reads it perfectly fine, but when I put it in the laptop it just sits there blinking away and never reads the disc.

What is going on with this system? When I first purchased the laptop I didn’t have this issue, but I did get a replacement DVD drive since I had an issue where the drive would keep ejecting from the slightest bump or tap to the drive door. Thanks!

Sounds like a problem with the drive how old is the pc?

/Geoff

About 3 years old, but everything is running great other than this DVD drive. This is the 2nd DVD drive for in the laptop.

I’ve been googling this for a little while now but unfortunately don’t seem any closer to an answer. It seems that the HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GMA-4082N is a fairly problematic drive in both windows and linux. However, i gather that most people have a problem with the drive disappearing after the OS has started, therefore not being able to use it at all rather than the partial functionality you are experiencing.

My drive will read commercial DVDs and burnt DVDs but will not recognize blank DVDs. K3B will not recognize it as a writable or readonly device but YAST’s hardware information util lists it quite happily.

I’ll keep googling the problem and hopefully I or someone else will come up with a soloution.

spuzzdawg

You need to look at the drive spec - some drives are fussy when it comes to reading dvd RW - some only do +RW and others only -RW.
Also try a better quality dvd. My Acernote doesn’t like dvd-R and refuses to read/write them, but it’s fine with dvd+rw! Do you have the problem with the same drive in windows?

Can the drive read burnt CDs, BTW? IMO you may be unlucky and have to replace the drive again. From my experience refurbishing hand-me-down machines to run Linux, the rough decreasing order of frequency of broken parts I find is:

CD/DVD drives
Power supplies
Hard disks
Video cards
Motherboards
and all the rest

I used to get quite a few kaput floppy drives. Nowadays I just disconnect them as a matter of course so I don’t know any more.

I don’t think changing the burn media will help because K3B doesn’t acknowledge that the drive even exists, yet I can still read some discs with it.
EDIT: The drive is meant to be a super-multi drive, the logos on the front panel of it say it can read anything.

Unfortunately my laptop only has linux on it so I can’t test the drive with windows. I have downloaded Windows 7 to give it a go but can’t burn it to use because of this problem.

spuzzdawg

Maybe try booting one of those LiveCD distros like knoppix or puppylinux to see if it can subsequently read a burnt DVD. If it can’t even read a burnt CD, then it’s really kaput.