Mounting (movie) dvd and/or (music) cd
 

When I insert a dvd (or cd) in my Linux Mint 14 Nadia, it does not mount/appear in the left sidebar. I tried
cf this thread and get the message
and cf the same thread I tried
which gives me
I am wondering if there is something wrong with my installation (although it has worked fine for a year or so), since I also encounter errors when trying to install other packages, and if I could possibly repair it?

An example is: I try to run and get the following error
The guide I am using prompts me to to solve the problem, but unfortunately returns this:
More errors. I tried and receive an even longer list of errors (excerpt from the output):
I am using different networks than I have the past year, but all the 'fatal errors' have me worried...

I hope someone can help me with (both) my problems! :)

more of a workaround than a solution:

open VLC and open the dvd from there (ctrl+D). (you might have to adapt the path, could be /dev/cdrom, /dev/sr0, /dev/dvd...)

this has helped me in the past with similar problems.

The reason you are getting the messages with apt-get is because you are using an unsupported system and the respositories are no longer available, you might find the archives somewhere. See the link below.

http://www.linuxmint.com/oldreleases.php

If you put a movie/music CD/DVD in the drive, you should see a windows pop-up asking what you want to use to open it. You should be able to access them from the /media directory. Do you see a new entry under /media after inserting the medium?

Things you should know:

1) Movie DVDs are encrypted with CSS. In the US, it is illegal to bypass CSS or DRM. However, all DVD players bypass CSS, and all blu-ray players bypass DRM, probably they have some type of license that protects them ? To be able to play movie DVDs in Linux you need libdvdcss installed. However, do note the legal aspects.

2) Music CDs cannot be mounted, they are written raw to the disk. There may exist programs that may appear to mount the disk, but this is just an abstraction, there is no filesystem to be mounted. You can rip music tracks from a CD. However, in the US it is only legal to keep one backup copy of a disk. You can still listen to the disk using a media player.

@ondoho: When I try to open directly from VLC, I get the error

None of the folders/files you suggest are in the /dev folder.

@yancek: Thank you for the link, and yes I can see Nadia was obsolete since May, but since I am away from home for some months, I don't have anywhere to backup, and hence I would like not to upgrade. I followed this guide on how to fix without upgrading, but my sources.list file is empty and sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list does not exist.

No pop-up (which there always is if inserting a USB, but fails on CD and DVD), and no new entry under /media :(

@metaschima: Thank you for the information. I checked that I have libdvdcss installed using the steps in this guide, which it turned out I already had. The second command returned this

But linux still cannot detect the DVD... (And so far I haven't been able to get a media player to play a CD either, it does not detect it.)

when i choose media => open disc in vlc, i am presented with a drop-down menu with a few preselected choices (like /dev/sr*...) and a "browse" button to browse the /media folder.

so you get nothing at all in those???

in that case... well, in that case my workaround won't work i guess.

you could still check if it uses some unconventional in /dev...

have you any way of checking if the hardware works at all & is recognized by the system?
i guess "lspci" should return something about the device.

what's in you /etc/fstab?

To play a dvd just run the media player on 'dvd://'.

@ondoho: I am also presented with a dropdown with preselected choises like this, but if I choose any of them, it is just a dead end (it is not linked to the dvd drive) as the directories don't exist. It does not seem to invoke any directories in /dev at all.

For pure hw I know that it works, as there is no problems reading CDs (or DVDs) in my Windows partition.

For linux I have tested that it detects the dvd if I boot my system with the dvd in the drive - then it appears under /media and the name of the DVD (in this case the name of the movie), and I can play it just fine in VLC.

If I eject the disc, the directory will remain in the /media and I can still browse through the folders of the DVD (although not open anything). If I re-insert the DVD into the drive, I cannot play it even though the DVD directory is still visible in /media, again it is not recognized (and the same goes if I insert another DVD, obviously).

/etc/fstab.d is empty (there is no fstab directory)

@metaschima: I tried to write dvd:// and media/dvd but it does not detect it.

this sounds highly unusal and wrong./etc/fstab is a file, not a directory.
please post its content.

Sorry :S This is the content of fstab:

ok so the drive is not being mounted at startup.

you can always try actually putting it in there, but it's really just a stab in the dark.

we need to find out if your system can see the hardware and maybe it can tell us why it's not being recognized properly.

not sure if cd drives are pci devices but e.g. the output of "lspci" or "lshw" might shed some light.

i also had this thought that maybe some other process might be blocking the drive?

I tried lspci and got the following (with a dvd inserted at boot such that I can play it as I enter the command):

And from lshw I got the following about the cdr drive (also with a dvd inserted before boot, and playing as I enter the command):

How could I find out if that is the case?

Update: after typing this, I tried to eject the dvd by clicking the usb icon and choosing eject the optical disc (sw). Doing this, the device actually disappeared from /media and what is more, when I re-inserted to test, it mounted just fine - a popup of options for the device, it appeared in /media and from the list of disks.

However, wanting to test with a different dvd I ejected (hw) by pushing the physical eject button for the dvd drive. Then it went back to all errors; directory stays in /media, and upon reinsertion cannot be mounted and the directory disappears. The error keeps hanging after I remove the dvd: from the usb icon it is visible as a device (that cannot be mounted) and it appears under my list of devices but reports an error if I click it (as it is not in /media anymore - whether the dvd is inserted or not, it makes no difference from here - and the option to eject (sw) is no longer there).

If I try to mount the dvd/open the directory, I get the message:

When I try lspci and lshw again, it seems the former is the same, and all the entries but the cdr drive entry from the latter are as well; this now reads:

(The drive is not physically open as the command is entered.)

it seems cd/dvd drives are not pci devices. but you found it with lshw, good.

since you're still using an unsupported system there really isn't much sense in discussing this any further.

reviewing your first post i think you might have borked something earlier.
you must repair your operating system, regardless of your current problem.
installing a current version probably is the easiest solution.
tip: if you go with ubuntu-based again, have a look at the releases and chose an LTS release. the newest LTS (17?) is supported for many years to come.

Yes, it does seem that the problems just keep piling up. I will have to wait with doing anything until I have bought a new computer, since I'm even more stuck if this is not easily resolved and I then have nothing to work from :S

Thank you for your help and advice!