I posted this in the k3b feedback section but no response as yet. Hopefully the busiest linux forums can help!

I have been avvidly using k3b for some-time. It is excellent and I will support the development in the future if I can! Currently using Mepis Linux with great satisfaction.

This is a new problem since opening a new pack of DVD-R. I have been backing up to DVD+R media for a long time and unfortunately, the previous type don't have any labels so I didn't know what to re-buy when shopping. I do know now! Whoops!

I now have 100 DVD-R discs. I open k3b, start a new DVD project, drag the files in as usual and go to burn. Usually this is flawless. This time I get:

OPC failed. Please try writing speed 1x. (My discs are 1-8x and I use Auto)
Fatal error at startup: Input/output error (?)

This is my debug:
Why can't I burn anything?

On another subject, if I change media or try to re-burn I always get the error:

This is like k3b doesn't like to unmount and re-mount a disc. The only way I know to undo this is to reboot!

Another problem is why I can only burn 4.4Gb DVDs when they are all 4.7Gb? I read into this a bit and I do have mkisofs installed. Any support greatly received.

maybe u can try setting the Speed to "ignore".

I have tried auto and the other speeds as well, alas. It's like k3b doesn't like the media.. but I am happily burning DVD-R on another machine. Dare I say which..

from the growisofs man page:

I just set up k3b for the first time and I'm having the same issue. I'm using DVD-R discs as well. I don't have any DVD+R discs to test my theory, but I'm guessing that the issue is just that k3b doesn't burn DVD-R format DVDs. I can burn on my spindle of DVD-Rs just fine in another OS (namely my legacy Windows installation--around until I can get DVD burning and my ATI TV Tuner to work...hopefully soon it can go away completely!) so I don't think it's a bad media issue. So far I haven't found any solution to this other than a post about rewriting something in the source code (http://lists.debian.org/cdwrite/2004/07/msg00146.html). Alas my knowledge of C++ gets me just a little bit further than Hello World! so I was lost as what to do. If you find anything out about this please let me know. I'd love to get DVD burning working on my Linux box.

I've been burning DVD-R discs via k3b for nearly a year. I do find that K3B tends to not work with 1x media (it works fine in Nero under Windows) but with faster media it works flawlessly, be the media DVD-R or DVD+R. If k3b doesn't write DVD-R media on your system, you may need to upgrade k3b and its dependencies. It looks like you are actually on a slightly more recent build of k3b itself compared to me, but what version of growisofs are you on, and which version of cdrecord?

Have you checked for firmware updates for your Plextor writer?

Have you tried putting the Plextor writer on an IDE channel not shared by the Pioneer drive, just to rule out incompatibilities between the devices and noise on the IDE channel?

Lastly, do you have DMA enabled for all of your IDE devices? (hdparm /dev/hda, hdparm /dev/hdc, hdparm /dev/hdd, etc.)

Thanks for the input! I am new to the commands hdparm /dev/hda, hdparm /dev/hdc, hdparm /dev/hdd. I have been reading the man pages and can see how you can change the disc parameters but I wouldn't know how to test their current state? Any pointers/links welcome here. To ensure DMA is enabled, I would know that from having burnt other media wouldn't I?

It's very odd, I have had problems with k3b before, even with silly things like not reading a newly inserted disc without rebooting, but I am getting frustrated now. However, I do think I have had k3b running better under Mepis than FC3 and Mandrake. Support on the k3b forums is very minimal and it would be nice to have a good guide somewhere. Saying that, am I the only one with these issues? Likely!

I am using the 2.6.10 kernel and my media will write from 1x-8x. I have tried different speed settings including auto.

From my experience DMA is usually enabled by default if the proper IDE module is loaded or built into the kernel. For my dekstop I installed (rather emerge'd on Gentoo) a utility called lspci. Sorry, I don't know the site offhand, I just got it out of the portage tree. Running that will show you pretty much every pci aspect of your system. For me, that output, combined with just a basic knowledge of the chipset of my motherboard (I have an Asus and know that it has an nVidia chipset by the user manual and bios splash screen), I was able to get the right "drivers" for my kernel. I also enabled the generic IDE driver too and have left that in. So far things seem to be working well with IDE, and hdparm shows I am using DMA. I would try building any IDE drivers as modules with your kernel and then add one at a time and see if hdparm shows DMA enabled or let's you enable it.

Alas, I am still having problems with k3b, though now burning in Windows (::shudder: with Nero I'm finding that my 8x DVD-R will only burn at 1 or 2x. They peek initially at 8x, but drop down to around 1x soon afterward. It's a brand new spindle of DVDs and I tried two DVDs from an old pack of 4x I had lying around, so I don't think it's a media issue. I have Plextor burner as well.

A note. Many Distributions have purposely Disabled some of the K3B DVD features and even some CDR RW features. So far until I can get aDVD Recorder, I can not test it under slackware. I can burn CD CDR CDRW without an issue. K3B works great, one thing is maybe cdrecord is oout of date, as is KDE and some of your other tools, KDE is 3.4.0 now, and from your post, I am thinking you need to update your tools.

I don't think Gentoo would have disabled k3b features as everythign is compiled from source. I have kde 3.4, k3b 0.11.24, and 0.1.6 of dvdrtools. The only thing I could think of would be setting a use flag when I emerge k3b through portage, but the option for burning DVDs shows up under k3b, so I'm assuming that's not the case.

Can you elaborate on that?

Incidentally, I think most of the things k3b is getting the blame for in this thread are actually the fault of the DVD burner or disc. In my experience, I've found that DVD-R(W) discs:

- take longer to start burning that DVD+R(W) discs
- take longer to finalise than DVD+R(W) discs
- often fail to burn at the advertised speed (e.g. 8x discs will only burn at 4x or slower) - unlike DVD+R discs
- have to be "erased" or "formatted" - whereas DVD+R apparently don't

If my message isn't clear yet, here's the soundbite summary: DVD+R(W) rox and DVD-R(W) sux!

DVD Writing

Ok, lets see if my brain can work after just getting my first cup of coffee started.

SuSe 9.2, possibly 9.3, Mandriva LE 2005, FC3 and later revisions, "Because of Copyright concerns DVD Recording and Playing will be disabled or Limited, to prevent Piracy"

Because of this, I am glad that I have made Slackware my choice of Distributions.

Now if it worked before, then I am guessing that you don't clean your recorders often. This is a definate Killer of being able to record on any medium. Also you may need a Firmware update to your Burner, so it has better features, My LG 8120B CDR RW had some problems and when I updated the Bios to 2.0 in the firmware for it, it made it work like new almost. Even better, as it tries to write at faster than it can.

Then comes Medium. the brand, and type have a lot to do with how it records. Some lesser "Bargain" brands are 50% less likely to be reliable, than say TDK, or Sony. Verbatum is not that good, though it does work, Kodak is a good product, and Memorex has some things to work out. Pioneer is probably better than TDK in many facets of how it is laid out. Some drives, -R work better than +R andvise versa. Just depends on the Drives Firmware.

From the sleeping elf in the forrest of elvendor. Hope that this makes some semblance of sence.

I had the exact same problem and I tried NeroLINUX and it worked like a champ... I guess I'll decide weather to buy it in a month.


Oz

well If Roxio Would come clean and make a Linux version, then I would be one happy girl

... but NeroLinux doesn't burn dvd-video's...