For years I had happily burned CDs (fedora distribution ISOs) on Linux using various IDE burners I just used the cedrecord command, no fancy options required.

Sometime around fc5, I'm not excactly sure when, 90% of my CDs started being coasters. The problem continues on fc6 (with all the current updates.)

I can boot to XP on the same hardware and get 99% burn success at any speed.

These are different computers and different burners that I'm doing this on - I have different model burners on different model computers, and linux fails on all of them and XP works on all of them. I can burn almost flawlessly (as long as the computer isn't doing anything else) at whatever speed the drives will suport under XP, and I have tried various speed settings under linux. Same failure rate at all speeds.

I have tried various linux GUI burning programs. All fail the same way cdrecord does. 10% of the CDs are ok, the rest coasters.

The bad CDs actually don't work. Most won't boot; a rare few boot and then fail during the install. So it's not a matter of the fedora CD testing program finding zero padding or not or whatever and reporting incorrectly. I have found the testing program 100% accurate when I have used it - if the CD won't pass, it won't work.

I have tried padding, not padding, disabling dma (setting "nodma"). I have tried many brands of media.

The burning processes report no errors.

I don't burn anything except ISOs so I don't know what they'd do under other circumstances.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Paul

what are your motherboard?? some motherboard have problems with linux DMA... for me I had the same problem in my other computer.. when I put a cd or dvd on my burner I just run `hdparm -d1 /dev/[your_device]` and all works perfectly..

Some of the computers are desktops and some are laptops, but they are from different generations (P2, P3) so if there is a problem, it's with a variety of hardware.

I believe d1 turns on dma, which I currently have the systems set for. I have tried turning it off, with no change in the result.

Paul

How old is your burner? AS they age, and if you do a lot of burning, the lens that focuses the laser can distort. The laser then goes out of focus and it either doesn't burn or makes a bad burn. Do you hae any trouble reading disks?

More a comment than help, just thought you'd like to know you're not alone. Interestingly enough I have the exact opposite problem. My burner works for FC6 and not XP. I still have WinNT 4.0 and that works, go figure.

I also found the changes made to cdrecord a bit annoying. Took me some searching to discover why scanbus didn't work like it use to and what to add to the -o dev= parameter. Guess the man page was more difficult to update than the code on that one.

Bill

If you check the 'preference and setup' otherwise called 'tools' there should be an option to burn image discs from an ISO. K3B is a good alternative to cdrecord by the way... I too had problems way back in FC2, and was rather chagrined to find I merely had to check to make sure I had all the dependencies up-to-date and installed.
Good luck.
masterofNanako

I think k3b use cdrecord... no???

The burners have been used for only 50 to 150 (successful) CDs and less than 10 DVDs. I have gone through a couple spindles of coasters besides these. I should have access to a brand new burner (different brand) next week and will try that.

I constantly update with the latest FC versions and patches. Besides cdrecord, I have used the gnome and kde gui burning tools, with the same result. Sometimes I get optimistic, for example the first two CDs I burned after some recent updates were ok. But the next 5 were the usual coasters.

At one point it seemed like there was a pattern that the first CD I burned after booting would be ok and subsequent ones would fail. But then that pattern didn't hold.

I can't experiment indefinitely with this so I may stick to XP burning for a while and hope something eventually improves.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

Paul

You know, this doesn't sound like a problem with the burners. I sounds like one of TWO things: the hardware, which would be less likely or the MEDIA you are using. Not to spam for a brand but IMATION is what I use anymore because I was getting coasters almost consistently out of Memorex... also for burning DVD's I use "+R" I have yet to get a coaster UNLESS the file set was faulty... I have a Toshiba DVD (came out of my wifes EMachine) and a Pioneer DVD multi-region programmable in "Nanako" my home built beast of burden.
Good luck and fortune to you!
-masterofNanako

I don't know if this is a clue, but my kernel ws updated to 2.6.18-1.2869.fc6 from 2.6.18-1.2868.fc6.i686 the other day and now my cd-writer isn't working! I rebooting using the older 2868 kernel and all came good again. I've edit grub to make the older kernel my default until I can do a bit more investigating.

build your kernel with 2.9.19.2! fedora put a lot of useless thing in their build...

1. Coasters have been from HiVal, Imation, Fuji, K-hypermedia, and another brand I don't remember. I have only burned CDs plus a couple of DVDs (DVDs on XP only.)

2. I have tried all fedora kernels plus 2.6.19 downloaded and built from kernel.org.

Paul