K3B Problem writing to RW DVD disks

Hello, I recently bought a spindle of blank dvd's. They work in nero in windows xp, but in k3b it tries to burn for a few seconds and then fails. Afterwards the disk is unusable in k3b it won't even attempt to write on it. This is the first time I have purchased dvd RW disks, all other dvd disks i've bought have worked. Is there a way around this issue? I'm using suse 10.2, with k3b version 1.0.1 Thanks

Have you tried 'blanking' the disks first? It may help, depending on exactly what you're burning to them, ie: data. movie, a linux ISO, etc.. Are there any errors returned from k3b or cdrecord, when it quits?

Hello, by blanking I assume you mean formatting the dvd disks. I can't format the disks the option does not apply. When I try to burn I get the error "write error" after only a few kb of data is written.

Originally Posted by GrapefruiTgirl Have you tried 'blanking' the disks first? It may help, depending on exactly what you're burning to them, ie: data. movie, a linux ISO, etc.. Are there any errors returned from k3b or cdrecord, when it quits?

I would check the error messages, too. I have successfully burned DVD-RWs using k3b in the past. Did you try to burn files/directories, or a prebuilt ISO image?

No, I don't mean formatting. I mean BLANKING. With cdrecord, which is the 'magic' behind k3b, it is required with RW discs, to blank the disk before using it. Consider it like a step in between A) taking the disk out of the package, and B) using the disk.
I have never used k3b, but I have used the 'guts' of it, cdrecord. As an experiment, try the following, from a console as root:

cdrecord dev=/dev/hdd speed=10 blank=fast padsize=63s -pad -dao -v -eject

and substitute /hdd for your actual device.
If this starts to work, it may take a long time with a DVD, and you may not be able to do much else with the machine while it blanks the disk.
If it works and finishes, try burning your data again after.
Please let us know if this helps at all.
PS - start k3b from within a console window, as it may provide a place to see errors from it, which would give more info about what the problem is..

Originally Posted by GrapefruiTgirl No, I don't mean formatting. I mean BLANKING.

AFAIK it is impossible to do -- but k3b asks user if she/he wants to blank dvdrw before burning. So burn and answer yes. Or use command line tools to blank the disc.

have a nice day, bye

Mocean

You do not need to format DVD RW disks before you use them (I have about 800). On certain systems (who knows why) some people have to shut the automount feature off in order to burn successfully. My FC5 box is that way. I would try it first by manually unmounting the DVD then burn the disk. I have also found that if a disk does fail, do not try to burn the same thing to it again (it just gets mad and stays mad). Put a fresh disk in and try again. Later you can burn a different image to the flakey DVD without issue(I do not know why).

I have also had better luck just burning images(ISOs). While this makes it a two step process, it does seem to work better(voodoo?). Have k3b make the image and after it is done making the image, burn it.

Good Luck
Lazlow

I guess it is a problem with mkisofs. The version that ships with Opensuse 10.2 has issues with DVD-RW. Try updating it to latest version.

Thanks for the replies guys, sounds good. I returned the disks and got non rw disks for now. But this will come in handy in the future.