ASUS DVDRW - problem with CDs
 

Helo!

I use Ubuntu Dapper drake.
I have IS7-e Motherboard.
And i have some problems with my Asus DVD recorder (it is a normal IDE connected recorder). It recognizes DVDs without problems, but not CDs. There are some CDs (i tried about 6, and the recorder "liked" about 3, and about 3 others not), that are unrecognizeable for it for some reason. If i insert them, i can choose to open it in a new window, or cancel.. this is ok, but if i choose to open in a new window, Konqueror gives a "malformed URL" message. The cd has no icon at the desktop, and has no icon at "media:/". In other words, i can't reach the cds in any way. The DVDRW has no problems runing other CDs howewer.. they have icons at desktop, etc.. i can reach them, and use them.

A tried to configure the desktop's behaviour, so it displays unmounted CDs too. When i did that, the DVDrw no longer recognized ANY CDs, so i changed it back.
I tried to reach the CDs from the terminal, cd-ing into them, then ls it's contents, and the ls said, that the cds are empty, contain nothing, witch is wrong of course.

Well, this is the information i can give.. can somebody tell me, what could be wrong?

Is this the "Combo" DVD/CDROM/WRITER? If so, then I have to report that several such Asus drives in this country have been found to be defective.
They are diagnosed as having a "weak lens", what ever that means!
Good news is that they are replaced free by the Asus distributors.

Nope, this is a DVD writer, not a combo. It's a "Asus 1604b" DVD writer (if i remember correctly).

I too have been having trouble with my asus cdrom/dvd combo....I have been trying everything to get it going again including editing fstab many many times....if they are indeed defective do you know where to check?
My model is -2424v driver ide-cd

Where to check? In this country, Asus is the only brand that has a reasonable guarantee. When you buy one, you fill out a card and post it to the local service centre. The shop where you purchased it should be able to tell you the address of the local Asus agent. Asus IS a good company, so probably has agents in most countries.

Old/defective CD's?
 

Check if you can read the CD's in another machine. CD's can get corrupted over time and be unreadable. Maybe you put in empty ones (?). Also have they all been burned the same way (same burning program, filesystem, all data CD, Audio, etc.)?

You should try putting the CD's which are not working in your drive and use K3b to get some information. Right click on drive icon and then "media info" (or something like that). Tell us what it reports.