LinuxQuestions.org HCL - HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4120B

spurious · 10-14-2004, 04:46 PM

LG GSA-4120b DVD+/-RW/RAM drive

I purchased the LG GSA-4120b dual layer DVD+/-RW/RAM drive in September 2004 for $99 Cdn. As soon as I took it home, I discovered that it had defective firmware (did not read commercial DVDs). The retailer exchanged it for a new unit, which has worked fine so far. I am using it with Kanotix 2004-05 (kernel 2.4.26-mppe-ar) and IDE-SCSI emulation ('append=hdc=ide-scsi' in lilo.conf).

The GSA-4120b can read and write to DVD-RAM media, which sets it apart from other drives at its price-point in the market. Further, after I hooked it up to /dev/hdc, it identified itself to Linux (cdrecord -scanbus) without any additional software. However, I discovered that, as with older LG models, the GSA-4120b DMA must be set to mdma2 in order to successfully record to DVD+/-R media. As root, use the command: hdparm -d 1 -X mdma2 /dev/hdx (where /dev/hdx is the correct device ID eg. hda - primary IDE master; hdb - primary IDE slave; hdc - secondary IDE master; hdd - secondary IDE slave). You can put this command in your rc.local or bootmisc.sh init script so that it executes every time you boot. MDMA2 does not seem to significantly affect DVD playback.

The GSA-4120b seems to be very fussy with media brands, especially if the firmware is not recent. The current firmware version as of this post is A111. Unfortunately, the firmware installation software is Windows only. If you do not dual-boot into Windows, you can install the firmware by using a Windows Live CD built with Bart's PE and Windows 2003 Server 180-day evaluation version (available for free download from Microsoft, but requires registration).

Anandtech reviewed the GSA-4120b and tested its speed and ability with different types of media. Overall, they concluded that it worked better with DVD+R than DVD-R.

Here are my own impressions of GSA-4120b compatibility with various media brands:

Commercial DVDs: no problems watching DVDs. The GSA-4120b is a pretty quiet drive, too.

CD-R: no problems reading or writing to CD-R's. I don't use CD-RW, so I can't comment on that.

Generic 4x DVD+R, DVD-R ($9.95 Cdn for spindle of 25): dvdrecord and growisofs both seem to dislike generic DVD media. I've had the best success using cdrecord-ProDVD, which hasn't coastered yet. Unfortunately, cdrecord-ProDVD is not Free Software; it is available free (of cost) for personal use, but you have to periodically download a time-limited key. Also, when you purchase generic DVD media, look carefully for the manufacturer's code, in small print near the centre hole. On the DVD-R, the code is FW0B; on the DVD+R media, the code is FW1B. My retailer says that in general, "FW" media works with LG drives, and "GW" media doesn't.

BenQ 8x DVD+R, DVD-R: these were on sale at Future Shop, $4 Cdn for package of 5, so I thought what the hell. However, they are like generic media, and tend to coaster.

Verbatim "Digital Movie" DVD+R ($20 Cdn for package of 5): after much frustration and coastering with generic media, I splurged and purchased Verbatim, which did the best in the Anandtech review. I've burned one Verbatim DVD+R with cdrecord-ProDVD, and another with k3b (which uses growisofs from the dvd+rw-tools package). Both were successful. I guess you really get what you pay for.

Maxell DVD-RAM ($9 Cdn each): works fine; I'm still exploring DVD-RAM issues. I came across this piece of advice: in your /etc/fstab, ensure that you use the 'noatime' option for the DVD-RAM drive, otherwise you will quickly wear out the read-write cycles for the medium eg. /dev/hdc /mnt/dvd auto users,exec,noatime,noauto,rw 0 0

2004-12-20 update: I love DVD-RAM. It's like a giant floppy. All I needed to do to format it was use the mkfs command -- see the above linuxquestions.org thread.

Dual-layer: no affordable dual layer media is available yet, so I will have to wait before I can see if the GSA-4120b performs as advertised.

I don't have any opinion about drive speed, because I don't care about the difference between 2x or 4x or 8x or whatever. Read the Anandtech review if you're interested.

I'm giving the GSA-4120b a 5/10 rating for Linux compatibility mainly because the firmware installation software is Windows only. Otherwise, the drive works with Linux, provided that you buy good quality recordable DVD media.

rylan76 · 12-01-2005, 03:17 AM

I found this drive to work perfectly in Linux (FC3) with both the stock FC3 kernel and a self-compiled 2.6.14.3 kernel. It worked perfectly in Rh9 (2.4 series kernel) as well. I have successfully written CD-R,CD-RW,DVD-R and DVD-RW disks, with not one failure or error, using the latest growisofs / cdrtools and K3B.

Installation was painless, K3B auto-detecting the drive. No extra modules or configuration is needed. With the neccessary motherboard facilities for DMA compiled into the kernel, this drive writes at maximum medium-speed with no problems.

ahamelin · 05-24-2006, 12:56 AM

So I said I'd recommend the product. But my answer isn't that definitive. I had a major problem and just resolved it today after a few months of research. Actually, the problem just solved itself automagically without any apparent reason.

I bought the GSA-4120B about a year ago, some time in the spring of 2005. I was still using RedHat 8 at the moment and it worked great with cdrecord-ProDVD to burn DVD-Rs as well as to burn CD-Rs.

It worked until recently. In March 2006, my drive just suddenly stopped recognizing any DVD I put in it. I mean any. Even normal DVDs rent from a club. Even totally new, blank DVD media. When I inserted a DVD into the drive, the drive just kept searching as if it was looking for the medium without ever finding it. Pressing the eject button didn't do anything. I literally had to completely shut down my PC (a reboot didn't gave me back my DVD either). Upon reboot, I had to quickly press the eject button during the POST, because as soon as the drive started to search for the disc, it locked itself and I've had to shut down again.

So the problem persisted until this week (!!). My room mate brought me a disc with a few small movies clips on it, among other things. Put the disc in there and watched the movies. But then I realized it wasn't a CD, but a DVD. Was my drive working again? Decided to purchased a pack of 5 DVD-R (Fujifilm) and came back home to try to burn an ISO file which was sitting on my disk since a few weeks. Tada! Magically, my drive started to do what I told it to. It burned the image flawlessly (although the speed didn't go higher than 4X, while the drive is normally capable of at least 8X).

So was it the medium only? I took out an old DVD-R I had used a few months back (had something on it already) and stuck it in the drive. Magic happened again -- the drive was suddenly able to read it again.

Only one problems remains. I can't seem to burn Dual-Layer DVD+R media (also Fujifilm). Cdrecord-ProDVD fails with the following output:

Code:

Cdrecord-ProDVD-Clone 2.01b31 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
Unlocked features: ProDVD Clone 
Limited  features: 
This copy of cdrecord is licensed for: private/research/educational_non-commercial_use
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: '/dev/cdrom:1,0,0'
devname: '/dev/cdrom'
scsibus: 1 target: 0 lun: 0
Warning: Open by 'devname' is unintentional and not supported.
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
SCSI buffer size: 64512
atapi: 1
Device type    : Removable CD-ROM
Version        : 0
Response Format: 2
Capabilities   : 
Vendor_info    : 'HL-DT-ST'
Identifikation : 'DVDRAM GSA-4120B'
Revision       : 'A117'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
Current: Unknown
Profile: DVD-RAM 
Profile: DVD-R sequential recording 
Profile: DVD-RW sequential overwrite 
Profile: DVD-RW restricted overwrite 
Profile: DVD+RW 
Profile: DVD+R 
Profile: Unknown (current)
Profile: DVD-ROM 
Profile: CD-R 
Profile: CD-RW 
Profile: CD-ROM 
Profile: Removable Disk 
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc-3 DVD+R/DVD+RW driver (checks media) (mmc_dvdplus).
Driver flags   : DVD MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE 
Supported modes: PACKET SAO
Drive buf size : 1114112 = 1088 KB
FIFO size      : 4194304 = 4096 KB
Track 01: data  7977 MB        
Total size:     7977 MB = 4084588 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
cdrecord-ProDVD: Unspecified command not implemented for this drive.
cdrecord-ProDVD: Cannot init drive.

As you can see above, I updated the firmware to A117 (was A102 before). The update application runs only on Windows, but it seems to work fine within VMWare and a WinXP image. It can be found at http://www2.melcoinc.co.jp/pub/hd/dvsmd5812_fwa117.exe.

Conclusion: the drive works great for normal usage -- when it actually works. Dual-layer medium cannot be burned -- at least on my configuration. (Any hint on that is appreciated by the way!)

As a last note, I hardly found any information or reference to the problem I described above. One is http://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters.php?DVDnameid=414 (see the third comment). Another was http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:ahtRxlllhboJ:club.cdfreaks.com/lite/t-114333+gsa-4120b+drive+problem+insert+dvd&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=2 but the page cannot be retrieved anymore. Some guy said:

Quote:

ok guys i posted this problem in many of the dvd related forums and didnt get a single working solution for it so far. the problem is the drive not reading any dvd's but cd, etc is ok. Windows xp is not seeing any dvd's in the drive.its simply asks to insert a disk when i clicked the dvd drive icon.

also i have found this little note on the original PDF manual of this drive saying.

"Please Note: Since this product supports Region Playback Control Phase II, a certain MPEG decoder card or Software without regional code setting may cause this drive not to read DVD-ROM discs. This Drive enables you to change the regional code up to 5 times."

so im just assuming this whole thing is a region related problem. i tried changing the region thru windows xp but its not allowing me to change. comes up with an error saying "theres no region 1 media inside the drive" but i had a region 1 inside.

anywayz ive been trying to resolve this for like a week now and didnt find anything that helps. so please anyone of you know about such a prob and a solution please help me out. thanks....:bow:

In March, when I first experienced the issue, I still had a Windows partition lying around so I tried to insert a DVD in the drive while running Windows, but the drive was still locking up. Moreover, it did the same even in the BIOS Setup. So it couldn't be anything but a hardware problem.

Hope all this information will be useful to someone.