New DVD writer won't write; old dvd reader won't read.
 

Hello,


After many years of putting off buying a DVD writer for my machine, I finally got round to it today. I set the jumper setting so that the new DVD writer (a Liteon Superallwriter) is the master and the old DVD reader is the slave, replacing the old Liteon CD writer. The new DVD writer can read DVDs, but writing seems to fail. In the message window in Kd3, I get "Write failed: Input/output error" yet it continues to churn away, before telling me after a couple of minutes that the recording was successful. However, when I try to play nothing happens either in the computer or in my DVD player connected to the television. On the desktop, it appears as a blank DVD, yet when I try to write on it again I get a message telling me that I must put in a blank DVD (I am using DVD-RWs by the way.) In GNOME I get this message which doesn't appear in KDE:


As for the old DVD player, it will play audio CDs but not video. In KDE I get a "malformed url" error when I try to read a commercial DVD (which did work before), whilst in GNOME it either plays very badly, or else shows an image for a couple of seconds and switches off.

I should add that I am using a Packard Bell computer with 750 Mo RAM, running on Debian Etch.

Thanks in advance for your help.

James

Try isolation, unplug your cd and see if the dvd still has errors. I presume the cd worked.

Here's an idea for the old unit: open it up and clean the lens. If nothing physical is wrong with it, there's a good chance it'll start reading again.
Use Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol or tape-head cleaning alcohol) and a Qtip or two.

As for the write errors, do the burning from a console (start k3b from a console) so you can see all the messages and/or errors that the unit spits out, and look for clues, or post anything relevant that might help someone diagnose the problem.

Hello again,

Thanks very much for your help. Actually, I should have said that I am very much a beginner at writing DVDs, and I've never installed a dvd or cd unit before, so the problem could be something very, very basic.

Anyway, I tried isolating the new DVD writer, totally unplugging the old reader, but the result is the same.

I wondered if the problem could be a permissions thing, Debian being very fussy about this. However, the problem remains whether I run K3b as root or as a normal user.

I tried formatting a DVD, both as a normal user and as root. On both occasions K3b told me that the operation was complete and the DVD was ejected as soon as I launched the formatting process. However, the DVD didn't turn and K3b won't write on it, saying that it needs to be formatted first.


Here are the messages I get in the terminal during the formatting process:

As a normal user:


As root:

No problems appear registered as root, which corresponds with the messages I get from K3B, which tell me that everything has been successful.

I also tried doing the operation with GnomeBaker, but the result is the same. Could I have installed the DVD writer incorrectly?

Here's something else. I didn't notice the Show debugging output that appears after I try formatting. The message here might be revealing to those in the know. This is the debugging report I got while trying to format a DVD as a normal user:

I hope this is tells someone something!

James

If you don't force it the wide electrical plug at the back should install one way. I have seen when the plug was not completely seated. It is possible you received a defective dvd burner also. I presume you are trying to write to a blank cdr or dvd.

Well, I pushed the leads in tight so I don't think it's that.
Yes, I was wondering whether the DVD burner could be defective. I was also wondering whether I could simply be using the wrong DVDs - I am very new at this business after all. I'll tell you exactly what is on the box and what is on the DVDs.

On the DVD burner box I have:

20x DVD/CD Writer & Rewriter.
Write to DVD + or - R /+ or - RW, DVD + or - R DL, DVD-RAM, and CD-R/RW

On the DVDs:
DVD-RW, Re-writable, 1x-4x compatible.

It all looks right to me, but just one thing: it says 1x-4x compatible on the DVDs but the burner is 20x. Does that matter?

Yes, it matters to some degree. Your burner will likely burn many types of media, but it seems to indicate that to burn a "DVD", your blank DVD's recommend a 1x - 4x speed. If using 'cdrecord' or a GUI to that like k3b, you can and should specify an appropriate speed. Otherwise the disks may end up burnt badly.
If you were burning a CD, you could likely use 20x or better, whatever gets you a good burn at a good speed.
NOTE: burning a whole DVD at 1x - 4x will take some time! But it should get you a good disc when done. Too fast a speed may look like it burns, but the disk will probably not work.

I'm about to have breakfast, but soon after I'll see if I can come up with a burn command line for you to try from the console, perhaps for a CD, just to test and make sure the burner is working period; then we'll go from there.

EDIT: Try THIS link posted by another user to a basic CD/DVD burning help page. If this gets you nowhere, do let us know.
:)

OK, I think I'm getting somewhere with this. For one thing, I let K3b decide the write speed for me, whereas it looks like I need to make it work from 1x to 4x. Next, I've just learned that I can't read .avi files directly from a dvd but they need to be converted via a programme called DeViDi to a format that DVD players can read. This I didn't do: I had simply created a data file with the .avi files and tried to make it work. This is probably where my difficulties were coming from, at least I hope it's that! But I still don't know why I can't re-write on what's supposed to be a re-writable disk. I followed your link, GrapefuiTgirl and I learned that DVD -RW disks should be automatically formated when you write to them, but this isn't happening. How can I blank these DVDs?
Oh, and by the way, I tried cleaning the old DVD and it works better, but it's still not perfect. I think I can conclude that it's probably damaged in some way. It reads audio OK, and I even managed to boot Knoppix off it, but video is still crappy. Maybe I dislocated something when I removed it?

As far as the DVD reader working 'better' that is good news. But, as for the video being 'crappy' I wouldn't really blame this on a dirty player. I would *think* that if it's gonna play the DVD, it will either play or it won't; meaning perhaps the video is becoming crappy due to another link in the chain so to speak, i.e. damaged cables, crappy recording of the media, innapropriate codec being used to decode, or something like that.
Not too much chance you diclocated anything, unless you dropped it on the floor :) in which case it again would either play or it wouldn't. For the most part, if they play, they play perfectly, and if they don't play, well, they don't play at all. I would clean it again, unless you did a really good job, and try it again. Depending on the operating environment (like cigarette smoke, cooking fumes, a fireplace or woodstove in your home) the gunk on a lens can be sticky and pesky to remove. Again, that's good that you saw an improvement.

Now, as for re-writable discs of any type, what that means is that to re-write them, they do need to be blanked or re-formatted again. Once a re-writeable disc is used, it technically becomes a READ-ONLY disc, until it is blanked again fresh, at which point it is now re-writeable again.
The exception to this is when a disc is formatted with a UDF read/write filesystem, with which you can use a disc kinda like a floppy disk, adding and removing stuff at your leisure until the media surface becomes worn out. Always mount these type of discs with the 'noatime' option in fstab, so the number of writeable mounts are not noticed.

In general, a re-writeable disc is good for about 1000 re-writes, give or take a few. This is 'hard-coded' into the media. The more re-writes are done though, eventually more and more errors will creep into the burn, until the disc wears out.

As for discs formatting automatically when you burn them, this hasn't been the case for me. However, by using the -blank switch on your burn command-line, you can make the disc blank before burning. NOTE: with a brand new disc, -blank=fast will work most of the time. With a used disc, you need to use -blank=full .

If you would like some specific examples of command-line statements I have used, I'll be happy to dig some out and post for you. NOTE however, I don't have a DVD burner, only a CD burner, so you'd maybe need to adjust the statements if necessary as they were written to burn to CD media, though I really don't know if any adjustment would be necessary. I'm really not sure. Anyhow, if you want to see examples of commands I have used to burn, just ask.
:)

Just to keep you updated: I've just tried to write an audio CD and it worked without a problem. I'm now listening to the cd that it created on the HiFi! Presumably this means that there's nothing wrong with the device nor with the installation. I'm now trying to convert my .avi files into DVD player format. It's taking a very long time, so I can only cross my fingers! One thing I noticed though: I can put far less files on the DVD than with K3b - but this seems to be in line with what it says on the DVD box - 120 minutes. It hadn't occurred to me, but I was far in excess of that 120 minutes before, which shows that the format really wasn't correct. Perhaps K3b isn't the best thing for creating video DVDs?

PS - thanks for your last post GrapefruitTgirl: it was very detailed. I understand a lot better now.

You're welcome, glad to have helped out some.

As I mentioned, I don't have a DVD burner, so maybe someone who does can give you some more tips as to the ins and outs of DVD burning. Same goes for what would be a 'good' tool to use. I'm not sure.

As for the SIZE of DVD's (how much they can hold) I think it partly depends on what type of data is being put on them too, but 120 minutes sounds right. I have some Memorex DVD-R's here, and they read on the package "8x 4.7GB 120 mins" and on the back, they read several video modes: XP/fine=60 mins, SP=120mins, LP=240mins, and EP=360 mins.

OK, so DeVeDe has finished converting my .avi files, but I still can't blank out the DVD. Here is what I get:

What should I do now?:cry:

Well, I've been Googling around (I seem to have spent my day doing this) and I've found out that a lot of people are having this problem. Here are some solutions http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-191949.html, but none of them work for me. I think I'll just take the DVDs to work and ask the nice computer technician to wipe them with Nero. I HATE it when we have to resort to Windows to do things like that, especially as I pass as a weirdo at work because I only have Linux on my machine and refuse to use any Microsoft software!

Let you know how it goes.

James

Blanking a disc.
 

TO BLANK a CDRW (fast basic blank):

cdrecord dev=0,0,0 speed=10 blank=fast padsize=63s -pad -dao -v -eject

The above command is what I use to blank a CD-RW. I suspect it would work for a DVD too. If you try it, let us know.
NOTE:to determine the DEV numbers, use one of the following to identify SCSI-type devices on the bus:

cdrecord -scanbus
or
cdrecord dev=ATAPI -scanbus

Or, what I do is just use it the usual way, like: dev=/dev/hdc or whatever your device is. Sometimes it complains a bit, but always works.

From the same tutorials where I got this info, there isn't very much info on DVD writing, except for UDF formatting and packet-writing, but there is a link provided, as follows:
See http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/ for more information about DVD writing.

I don't know what's AT the link, but maybe something useful..