I disconnectd the cdrom and made the dvd writer the only device on the cable and I still cannot mount any media. I then hooked up the cdrom and I can mount disks on it, just not on the DVD writer. No matter how I try to mount the DVD writer I get "special device sr0 does not exist"
What is strange though is when I issue " Mount /dev/sr0 /mnt/dvd " the light on the DVD Writer starts to blink but then stops and I get the above message. I though maybe it being a cheap DVD writer had something to do with it but the cdrom is the same manufacturer as the Writer.

Have you ever had success with the drive in any other distro or OS?

Yea, it was working in slackware the stopped. No matter, I am going to format the HD. Thanks for the help

@M$ISBS Love your username it about sums microslop up to me.(sorry about off topic)

Looks like you already corrected the cable select, slave, master jumper issue. Try not to use cable select, it is not always bug free. First device / only device = master. Second device (on cable) = slave.

You have persistent udev rules for storage devices and ethernet devices. Remove these, poweroff, connect only the DVD Drive to the secondary ide controller, and set as master.
Poweron, and try to mount a PRESSED DVD and/or CD with the drive. Some drives are just junk And may have issues with burnt media.
After issuing the mount command, check dmesg.

Also, there really is not a need for an fstab entry of optical drives if you are using KDE/Dolphin's auto mounter or Xfce/Thunar's. Currently these programs use HAL and DBUS to mount removable drives to the /media directory. Requires hal, message-bus, and D-Bus to be started and running, along with the user to be in the plug-dev group to function properly.

Can you please post the output of .

I suggested he try a non-empty disk.

Your system says /dev/dvd0 does not exist. Later on you use /dev/sr0. Are you sure the usage on your system is straight?

Look into /dev to see which devices your system really has got.

Ive tried everything mentioned with no luck, Heres the partial output of lshw -short ......

/0/100/2.5/0 /dev/sda disk 81GB Maxtor 6Y080L0
/0/100/2.5/0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 75GiB EXT4 volume
/0/100/2.5/0/2 /dev/sda2 volume 917MiB Extended partition
/0/100/2.5/0/2/5 /dev/sda5 volume 917MiB Linux swap / Solaris partition
/0/100/2.5/1 /dev/cdrom1 disk DVDRW SOHW-1633S
/0/100/2.5/0.1.0 /dev/cdrom disk CD-ROM LTN-5291S
/0/100/3 bus USB 1.1 Controller

Ive tried mount /dev/cdrom1 /media/dvd, /dev/sr0 /media/dvd, ETC... with the same outcome. "Device sr0 does not exist"
I start up k3b and the burning program that comes with Xubuntu and both programs see the burner, but they both say there is no disk in the burner, I have also tried two different brand disks in the burner. I did read somewere online about not using a 40 wire ide connector but dont understand that.

I just checked and even in the Xubuntu panel that shows mounted devices the DVD writer is there as:
/dev/dvdrw1 /media/dvd but it shows it not mounted.So I tried mount /dev/dvdrw1 /media/dvd and I still get Device sr0 does not exist.......

No, you didn't. Please luck at my previous post.

And as stated above in post #5 by frankbell you can't mount empty / unformatted disks.

The flattish (~2 inch) cable to your burner might either consist of 40 or of 80 parallel wires. The 80 wires variant is more resistant to signal interference. Ask you local dealer.

See above.

Then it probably doesn't. Again, see above.

I have looked at /dev and there is sr0, sr1, dvd1, dvdrw1, cdrom1, cdrw1.
I have tried several different disks with data on them.

Two things:

a) remove the jumper on the DVD to make it master / slave entirely and test again. (I once had a similar problem with a hard disk and got it solved in this way).

b) remove (# make comments of) the line(s) in your /etc/fstab pertaining to removable media and try again. (Udev should take care of any events then).

HTH.

I had already set the jumper to master so I removed it completely and I checked fstab and there are not commented out lines except notes.

So... I removed the drive and installed a cdrw I had in another system and It mounted right away and I can write to it. I took the DVD writer

and installed it on the end of the ide cable and still got the same messages when I try to mount it.

I am starting to think that this drive is bad, even though it has not been used that much. I am going to install it in another system to

check. I will post the results. Thanks for the help.

Excuse me butting in - Perhaps a technical explanation will help.

The read head on a cdr/cdrw drive has 3 adjustables sealed at manufacture to pass exact currents through laser diodes for the read. Setup is not trivial and requires fancy machinery. No repair house spends $10k to get kit to fix drives worth $20, so a repair option doesn't exist.

What is less commonly known is that the forward voltage across LEDs decreases with age. So the adjustments are put out of adjustment. Drives usually die slowly, developing mule-like symptoms before failing. This box I am currently using has such a failed cdrw drive in it atm - I'll buy another some day.

Try this: If the system sees the drive, put in a pressed cd (not cdr) and run
hdparm -tT /dev/sr0

If it runs, repeat it 4 or 5 times then try mounting. If that solves it, the drive is dying. If it doesn't, the drive is dead.

1 members found this post helpful.

Okay, one less to try.

You got me wrong here. I asked that you edit /etc/fstab. Please comment out the line(s) for your DVD burner (see my previous post why).