I'm having trouble using cdrecord to burn an ISO, and I'm getting the error message in the subject line. I've never had this trouble in the past, so I wonder if it's this particular kernel or something. I'm running FC4, namely:

# uname -r
2.6.14-1.1653_FC4smp

I'm using the same cdrecord command that is in dozens of "HOWTO" documents around the web, namely something like:

# cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=1,0,0 -data FC4-i386-disc1.iso

The result is:

# cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=1,0,0 -data FC4-i386-disc1.iso
cdrecord: No write mode specified.
cdrecord: Asuming -tao mode.
cdrecord: Future versions of cdrecord may have different drive dependent defaults.
cdrecord: Continuing in 5 seconds...
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01-dvd (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: '1,0,0'
scsibus: 1 target: 0 lun: 0
cdrecord: Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character. Cannot open SCSI driver.
cdrecord: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'.
cdrecord: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'.

I'm not sure why it says it can't open the SCSI driver. As I understand it, it needs "ide-scsi" loaded, and I have that:

# lsmod | grep scsi
ide_scsi 22217 0
scsi_mod 139753 3 ide_scsi,libata,sd_mod

Oh, and I'm pretty sure the -dev is right:
# cdrecord -scanbus
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01-dvd (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
scsidev: 'ATA'
devname: 'ATA'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial libscg transport code version (schily - Red Hat-scsi-linux-sg.c-1.83-RH '@(#)scsi-linux-sg.c 1.83 04/05/20 Copyright 1997 J. Schilling').
scsibus1:
1,0,0 100) 'LITE-ON ' 'COMBO SOHC-4832K' 'OGK1' Removable CD-ROM
1,1,0 101) *
1,2,0 102) *
1,3,0 103) *
1,4,0 104) *
1,5,0 105) *
1,6,0 106) *
1,7,0 107) *

Any thoughts or suggestions? I'd really appreciate it!

Scott

On 2.6 kernels, the cdrecord line changed to dev=ATA:

So, from your scanbus statement, it would look like this....
cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=ATA:1,0,0 -data FC4-i386-disc1.iso


Edit: I sure hope that speed is not 2

Excellent! That worked just fine. Oh, and my speed is, thankfully, much higher than 2. At some point, I was making darn sure it wasn't a speed issue. :-)

Thanks so much!

Scott

I burned a bunch of CDs recently, some on Linux (thanks to the help from homey) and some on Mac. Many of the ones burned on Linux seemed to complete fine, but then when I ran the "mediacheck" on them (these were Fedora Core ISOs I was burning), they failed. Just to be sure I wasn't confusing which disks came from which machine, I burned a few more, and all three failed.

I checked the sha1sums for the ISOs, and all were correct. Burning those same ISOs using Mac OSX's Disk Utility worked fine.

In the Linux burn, I let "cdrecord" pick the speed, and it said that the fifo was 0 times empty, so I assume there isn't a speed issue. I didn't see any error message from cdrecord. This was the command I used:

# cdrecord -v -dev=ATA:1,0,0 -eject -data FC4-i386-disc3.iso

The exact transcript is below, in case there's any useful info in there.

Any thoughts about what went wrong? Should I just give up burning CDs on Linux? I've discarded so many disks over the years that I'm pretty frustrated.

Thanks for any help!

Scott

================ transcript here ================
cdrecord -v -dev=ATA:1,0,0 -eject -data FC4-i386-disc3.iso
cdrecord: No write mode specified.
cdrecord: Asuming -tao mode.
cdrecord: Future versions of cdrecord may have different drive dependent defaults.
cdrecord: Continuing in 5 seconds...
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01-dvd (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
Note: This version is an unofficial (modified) version with DVD support
Note: and therefore may have bugs that are not present in the original.
Note: Please send bug reports or support requests to http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla
Note: The author of cdrecord should not be bothered with problems in this version.
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: 'ATA:1,0,0'
devname: 'ATA'
scsibus: 1 target: 0 lun: 0
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial libscg transport code version (schily - Red Hat-scsi-linux-sg.c-1.83-RH '@(#)scsi-linux-sg.c 1.83 04/05/20 Copyright 1997 J. Schilling').
SCSI buffer size: 64512
atapi: -1
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 2
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'LITE-ON '
Identifikation : 'COMBO SOHC-4832K'
Revision : 'OGK1'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-ROM.
Current: 0x0009
Profile: 0x0010
Profile: 0x000A
Profile: 0x0009 (current)
Profile: 0x0008
Profile: 0x0002
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R/CD-RW driver (mmc_cdr).
Driver flags : MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE FORCESPEED
Supported modes: TAO PACKET SAO SAO/R96P SAO/R96R RAW/R16 RAW/R96P RAW/R96R
Drive buf size : 1422080 = 1388 KB
FIFO size : 4194304 = 4096 KB
Track 01: data 637 MB
Total size: 732 MB (72:35.20) = 326640 sectors
Lout start: 733 MB (72:37/15) = 326640 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
ATIP info from disk:
Indicated writing power: 6
Is not unrestricted
Is not erasable
Disk sub type: Medium Type C, low Beta category (C-) (6)
ATIP start of lead in: -11231 (97:32/19)
ATIP start of lead out: 359846 (79:59/71)
Disk type: Short strategy type (Phthalocyanine or similar)
Manuf. index: 27
Manufacturer: Prodisc Technology Inc.
Blocks total: 359846 Blocks current: 359846 Blocks remaining: 33206
Forcespeed is OFF.
Speed set to 8467 KB/s
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 48.0 in real TAO mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write 0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
trackno=0
BURN-Free is OFF.
Performing OPC...
Starting new track at sector: 0
Track 01: 637 of 637 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf 98%] 51.0x.
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 668954624/668954624 (326638 sectors).
Writing time: 146.820s
Average write speed 31.8x.
Min drive buffer fill was 92%
Fixating...
Fixating time: 12.331s
cdrecord: fifo had 10537 puts and 10537 gets.
cdrecord: fifo was 0 times empty and 5026 times full, min fill was 89%.

Mediacheck failing is quite common and is not really anything to worry about. It could be a white space issue(padding), or a dma issue (most likely). Try running the tests again this time adding dma=off

mediacheck dma=off

Okay, this is interesting, but perplexing. The reason that I did the mediacheck is because the Linux install failed using these disks. So, even if I can get them to pass the mediacheck by saying dma=off, I still can't use them to install Fedora with. Is there a way to get the installer to use these disks? Or are they just coasters?

Thanks for your help!

Scott

PS. the results are in: they do pass the mediacheck with dma=off.

Yes you can use them to install, just use the same switch;

linux dma=off

Thanks so much! Now I regret discarding all those "bad" disks.

Do you know what this dma=off business is about? I remember DMA from my operating system class, long ago, and it had to do with allowing the disk to write directly into memory (DMA = direct memory access), thereby improving the I/O rate by not having to interrupt the processor until the disk transfer is finished. Is that what this is? Is there a bug somehow, so that DMA doesn't work properly and we have to turn it off? Does this slow down the installation process? Should I prefer disks where I don't have to turn off DMA?

Thanks again,

Scott

On some systems with certain CD/DVD drives yes dma needs to be off. I'm not 100% sure bit if I remember correctly it's a bug with the installer kernel.

Thx homey, I have been googeling all day to find that out.It is encouraging to know that I was not the only one having that problem. And I am happy to say I have finally taking the plunge and am doing a straight linux boot. No more windoze for me.