I replaced the Dell provided DVD drive in my PC (and HL Data Storage drive) with the ASUS drive listed in the subject. I am running Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit. Brasero reports an "unknown error" when trying to write a data DVD. Nero Linux 4 reports a little more info I am able to write a DVD in the new drive in the same physical PC using a VMWare XP virtual machine running Nero 7. The VM was not running when the drive failed in Linux - I have had conflicts between the host and VM although most often when burning a CD.

Any ideas? I have used a wide range of CD and DVD readers, writers and rewriters with a number of different distros with no compatibility issues. Based on the fact that the drive did burn a disk successfully from the XP VM - and I can read the disk from Linux - I am guessing that the drive is mechanically OK.

TIA,

Ken

p.s. The original drive had started to act a little flaky last week - about 1 of 3 burns failing - of course after I ordered the new drive the original began to work fine again

p.p.s.

Well I just successfully burned a CD from Nero/Linux - Ran the whole process 1) determine max speed; 2) simulate; 3) burn

So then I tried to do the same with a DVD

first try Nero flipped me the bird - "cannot do a simulation for this type of disk"
second try, deleted speed test and simulation - Nero flipped me the bird again - "illegal disk"
third try - it seemed to burn and is now doing a data verification

I will try with Brasero when this is done.

I have the same model from NewEgg. I've burned 2 Verbatim DataLifePlus 8x DVD-R's with it so far (both at maximum write speed) using K3B under Slack 13.1. The data written was verified after the burn.

I would try verifying data immediately after burning a disc in your XP VM to see if the write is actually good.

It could be that Linux is trying to calibrate (hence power calibration error) the drive before writing with it, whereas XP just writes, but this is pure speculation on my part.

Thanks wingman358,

I have verified the data from the successfully burned disks. Seems to be perfect! A couple of interesting things...

After completing the speed test, Nero decided to burn the 16X Memorex DVD+R at 8X - then it barfed with the calibration error and other messages. When I told Nero just to burn the darned thing it burned at 16X and was successful(?)

You would think that after all these years the process of burning optical media would have been sorted out. Well, what can I expect for $23US (from newegg). My first Sony CD READER(!) cost about $250. My first CD burner - one of the first HP EIDE drives (remember when they were all SCSI and $1000+) - was about $450.

I was going to buy a Sony Optiarc but the Asus was top rated. I have 3 EIDE Optiarc drives but I have also returned 3 for replacement - one DOA and the others after a short time. The most reliable DVD writer I have ever owned, still own it, is a Mad Dog brand which I purchased at Office Max of about $70 many years ago. It has burned hundreds of disks.

Ken

The two aforementioned discs were my first DVD burns ever, so I'm a newb at DVD burning. I just press "BURN" and then realize I don't have any blank DVD's

I've read many times over that DVD's should be burnt to a crisp... er, burned at lowest speed. Never have I seen any supporting reasoning or claims.

If you're still having troubles, you might want to try other burning software (K3B seems like a great one)

I used to use the KDE desktop when I ran Red Hat and Fedora. Since I moved to Ubuntu I have stuck with Gnome. I have used K3B and something else with a longer name which escapes me at the moment. I may give K3B a try as I should be able to load it on Gnome (along with a bunch of KDE support libraries).

Ken

Well, I installed K3B. The first DVD I tried I got a warning something like "Medium or burner does not support 16X" then it decided "Switching burn speed UP to 17X". This did not work, two bad burns with some obscure error messages and the comment to the effect "might be the medium".

The same burns, same files and DVD media failed in Nero Linux.

So I decided to take the hint from K3B. I tried a new pack of TDK media. So far, so good. 3 DVDs perfect. I had noticed that I was having problems over the past couple of weeks with my most recent pack of Memorex blanks - and not only in this PC. However, as I had burned about 150 of these blanks with no problems over the past few months I refused to believe that I had bad media. Perhaps a few more successful TDK burns and I will be convinced and I will trash the last half a pack of Memorex.

All that said... I appreciate the prod to try K3B. It has a key feature which I have not found in any other Linux burning program. It displays the aggregate size of folders in the project compilation. This makes filling a disk to capacity a lot easier. Of course it would be nice to see the size listed on the top half of the screen before I add a folder but I will live with what it offers.

Ken

I have come to the conclusion that the bad batch of Memorex media is the cause of my problem.