Hello folks

I can write data cd's with k3b but when I try to backup a
data dvd using the copy dvd command (trying to backup the Mandrake 10.1 official distro) it fails with the following error messages.

System
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K3b Version:0.11.16
KDE Version: 3.2.3
QT Version: 3.3.3

growisofs
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Executing 'builtin_dd if=/tmp/kde-peter/k3b_image.img of=/dev/hdc obs=32k seek=0'
:-( write failed: Input/output error

growisofs comand:
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/usr/bin/growisofs -Z /dev/hdc=/tmp/kde-peter/k3b_image.img -use-the-force-luke=notray -use-the-force-luke=tty -use-the-force-luke=tracksize:1 -use-the-force-luke=dao:1 -dvd-compat -speed=2

I've just installed 10.1 and have been through the urpmi update system

A clue might be that when k3b has formatted a dvd +rw or dvd -rw, I can no longer get the drive to mount by selecting the "mount" command on the desktop. Also, in fstab, the /dev/hdc entry saya "iocharset=iso8859-15" . Should that read iso9660?

Any help gratefully appreciated.

Is your DVD-RW /dev/hdc?

This looks really weird "usr/bin/growisofs -Z /dev/hdc=/tmp/kde-peter/k3b_image.img" Typo? (/dev/hdc=/tmp...)

iocharset=iso8859-15 is which ascii table to use for looking at file names. iso9660 is filesystem type.
They have nothing to do with each other.

- Peder

Hello Peder thanks for your reply. Yes, my DVD re writer is /dev/hdc. It is shown on my desktop as "CDROM (hdc) /mnt/cdrom".

You can probably tell I am not too good at this stuff!

I should also add that the Mandrake 10.1 disk I am trying to copy is in a DVD ROM drive (hdd).
hdc and hdd both mount ok with this disk (or other commercial disks), but hdc fails with blank DVD -RW and DVD +RW and the error message in that case is "can't read superblock". Very puzzling.

You can't mount a blank CD/DVD. mount needs a filesystem on the device and a blank disc hasn't got any.

Some googling shows that weird line is correct, btw.

I think the problem is that you have to format the RW disc once. DVD/RW are a bit peculiar in that way.
You have to format it once but when that's done you can just overwrite the contens.

See if k3b can format it for you, otherwise insert the DVD/RW and type 'dvd+rw-format /dev/hdc'

- Peder

Hello again Peder and thanks for your further comments.

I think I have solved the problem. If I put the source disk in my DVD-ROM drive and a DVD+RW in the re-writer, then simply click on "Copy DVD" in the tools menu, I quickly get the usual growisofs error message.

If however I drag the contents of the source disk into the "k3b data project window" and click on "burn" everything works beautifully.

Sorry to have wasted your time. I find that finger trouble happens a lot with Linux and I have a lot to learn!

Petermcp