Hello everyone. I have FC5 installed. I had a USB External CD Writer, and I replaced it with a Pioneer Dual Layer DVD/CD Writer. Of course, now its not showing up under My Computer as a device. I can only imagine that the trouble is, the device or a device driver is not written to the current Kernel (kernel-2.6.18-1.2257.fc5).

Of course, the question is...how do I get it detected, yyyup and runnin'? I will need a little help in going into the kernel to change things if you think that is required, but I don't know just exactly what I should look for or change to do this. Need some help and advice...

Thank you everyone, as usual, in advance - JimmyCFiverTwo

Have you tried "fdisk -l " command to see if it's listed?

This is what I get when executing that command at the terminal as root:

Usage: fdisk [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK Change partition table
fdisk -l [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK List partition table(s)
fdisk -s PARTITION Give partition size(s) in blocks
fdisk -v Give fdisk version
Here DISK is something like /dev/hdb or /dev/sda
and PARTITION is something like /dev/hda7
-u: give Start and End in sector (instead of cylinder) units
-b 2048: (for certain MO disks) use 2048-byte sectors

Obviously, there is something I am not doing. Thanks - JimmyCFiverTwo

It seems that you don't give the right command. It is "fdisk -l" and "l" is like leopard or lion.

Last night, I was reading some older posts and I found one that did some helping. I created
a mountpoint for the drive and in /media and called it /media/usbDVD. Then, I added this line
to the /etc/fstab file:

/dev/scd0 /media/usbDVD auto noauto,users,ro 0 0

I then rebooted, and in My Computer, the drive showed up. I have a slightly different right
hand click menu choices then I do for the other IDE DVD I have on the computer. I actually
have two DVD/CD writers, one of which is an IDE drive and the other one which is an external
USB drive. I am able to read the external USB drive now with a disk in it and have to unmount
the drive in order to eject it.

I went ahead with your latest suggestion and ran the fdisk -l statement in terminal. Sorry,
but an L and and I look the same to me in lower case. Here is what I got:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 14593 117218241 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdc: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 1 6944 55777648+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdc2 6945 14593 61440592+ 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/dm-0: 136.6 GB, 136633647104 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 16611 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 2080 MB, 2080374784 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 252 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 19457 156288321 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdc: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 190782 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 2 190782 195359744 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc5 2 190782 195359728 7 HPFS/NTFS
[root@localhost ~]#

As you can see, I have several hard disks. The funny thing is that the internal
IDE DVD is recognized by Linux as a DVD/CD writer while the external DVD/CD USB
device is being driven by an SCSI driver. I don't know why the external is being
driven by a SCSI driver...but it is.

From Linux Format magazine, I found a very useful utility which I installed. It's
called HardInfo 0.4.1. You can download this module from:

http://www.altlinux.com/index.php?mo...ckage=hardinfo

Its really a neat little program and runs excellently on FC5 Gnome Desktop. You
might want to consider installing it to see for yourself, but it gives excellent
hardware information. From this module, I was able to get additional information
regarding the two different DVD drives. Here is what I got:

For the IDE DVD Writer I get:

Model Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-108
Device Name: hdd
Media: cdrom
Cache 0kb

For the External USB DVD Writer I get:

Model Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-111D
Type CD-ROM
Revision 1.23
SCSI Controller: scsi5

What I don't understand is why or HOW a SCSI Controller can control, run or operate
a USB external drive. I am sure about which device is which, because I built my
own computer and I know which device is which model.

Is this correct for a SCSI driver to be driving an external USB device? Also,
what would I do to have a USB device driver driving it? Not sure how to do that.

One other question, from that artical I read I told you about. It says to also look
into creating a new udev rule to make the device always be /dev scd0...I know that
refers to another computer setup, but I don't know how to write a udev rule or
where to write it. If you know what this refers to I would appreciate your assistance.

I would like both drives to operate with the same right click menus. I haven't yet
tried to burn anything to DVD or CD yet, so I am not sure that the external drive
is doing everything is should be able to do. I am using GnomeBurner, but perhaps you
have a suggestion on a better CD/DVD burning program...

I appreciate your help and assistance...JimmyCFiverTwo

The way you added it to the fstab looks correct. What I would do is to try if the device works correctly by writing a CD and a DVD as well. Just to be sure before proceeding to anything else.

For udev rules you can have a look here: http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html

I don't know GnomeBurner to be honest but I'm using the well known K3b: http://www.k3b.org

As far as I know all the external usb devices are captured as SCSI devices. I hope someone else could explain this.

PS: I thinkt that the 'fdisk -l" tip was useless for your occasion as it will not prompt you any dvd/cd devices but hard disks and removable disks. Anyway...

Thanks for your suggestions and help. That was a good link to the udev rules.
I am reading it now. Your help is much appreciated. JimmyCFiverTwo

I have seen your other post but will reply here is this is the first post and I suspect is not resolved so we stay here until we or someone helps eh?

1) I agree with Panagiotis that fdisk irrelevant.
2) /etc/fstab is where you put stuff that needs 'mounting' to folders for easy access so this is still the issue.
3) as per other post....ext2 3 and the like are hard drive formats a bit like ntfs and are NOT to be used in any way for burners.
4) I suggest burners should be defined as iso9660....keep it simple...my distro does not ....but wtf?

so here is my line

/dev/hda /mnt/cdrom iso9660 users,noauto 0 0

now I am sure you know some terms so lets skip the /devices and /mnt and say iso9660 is the standard for commercial cds and makes them easy to read on other readers/ users means you can mount and umount/ noauto means on boot the init scripts do not produce an error when it finds no media in the tray (good) and you must manually click on your desktop icon or issue a command in the cli (terminal) and 0 0 refers to no priority or checking of the filesystem.

5) now the messy bit is the old 2.4 kernel that used a scsi emulation for burners when you know you have an atapi wide ribbon cable connected to the internal burners and an usb cable connected to your new burner.

the 2.6.19.1 kernel has an even newer section on sata stuff but you can see that yourself if you use a vanilla kernel.

Question....what is the reason why you are not on a fc6?...which should be on a more up-to-date kernel

6) since we know you can read a media in the /dev/scXXX is working but I suggest as a work-around until you move to fc6....you always turn on the computer with certain usb devices installed

eg lets pretend you have a usb printer usb burner and usb flash
always boot with the burner so it always gets /dev/scd0
and not compete with the flash