multi burner won't recognize blank CD [Solved]

[Ditzian]

I have an LG multiburner, designed to play and burn CDs and DVDs.  This question is a revisit of a much earlier attempt to get this drive working.  In order to resolve hardware recognition errors, I disconnected the older plain CD reader/burner and replaced it with this new LG CD/DVD burner reader.  This did not fix things: with both drives connected, PCLinuxOS recognizes only the old CD drive; with that old drive removed, PCLinuxOS does not recognize the remaining DVD multi-drive.

I am trying to burn a CD using this drive, but K3B does not give me the start button and says I have no blank CD media in the drive.  I tried another program, Grafburn, and it says : No disk/wrong disk.  I also tried a program called Simple Burn, and it says the media is not blank.  I know that I have used these blank CDs in another drive, a plain CD reader/burner.  Just for fun, I replaced the blank CD with a blank DVD and called for a DVD iso burn in K3B, and K3B recognized the blank DVD media.

When I use PCC, there is no mention of this drive in the hardware section.

If I try to read from the drive, simply putting a DVD in it brings up the usual menu, after a very, very long delay, but it does not work.  However, if I use VLC to seek out the drive and play, it plays a DVD successfully.  If I put in a CD, it also blinks for a very long time and nothing happens.  Amarok does nothing if I say to play a CD, and it does not show the player in the Play Media dialog.  K3B labels this drive: HL-DT-SD DVD-RAM GH22NP20.  The spec sheet at Newegg says that this drive reads and writes both CDs and DVDs; it specifically mentions CD-R disks, which is what I am using.

The reasons that I am revisiting this question are: (1) this time I only have the single drive connected; (2) the drive does play a DVD, and appears to be ready to record a DVD.

What remains are: (1) how to burn a CD; (2) how play a CD.

I wonder if the fact that the drive does not appear in the hardware list is a problem, and whether it has to be mounted in some specific way.  Here is the result of my A first naive attempt to mount the drive:

[jan@jan_ditzian ~]$ mount /dev/cdrom
mount: I could not determine the filesystem type, and none was specified

A second naive attempt:

[root@jan_ditzian jan]# mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /media/cdrom/
mount: no medium found on /dev/hdc

it looks to me like most of the system does not recognize the drive, but some of it does, as long as a DVD is in the drive.

Jan

[T6]

since you mention hdc, i assume that you have ide drives

is that cable working properly?

did you set properly jumpers?

have you tested each unit as master and slave(try combinations)

use a jumper, don't leave the the units to cable select

check bios to verify that the drives are properly connected

if i am wrong, the units could be sata, try another cable and other sata port, verify that you are not using sata raid ports on the mainboard if possible and check bios to see if bios sees both drives or sees only one incorrectly reported

[Ditzian]

since you mention hdc, i assume that you have ide drives

Yes, IDE drives.

is that cable working properly?

I believe that it is.  For the test, I removed it from the old CD drive and connected it to the DVD drive.  Both were jumpered as master.  There is no slave on this IDE port.  In the conditions I reported, only one drive was connected at a time; it was connected to the end connector (master) of the IDE cable.  The problems occur even when only the DVD drive is connected.

did you set properly jumpers?

I checked, because the DVD was initially set up as a slave, so I moved the jumper to the master position.

have you tested each unit as master and slave(try combinations)

I have not done this.  I only have the single CD or DVD/CD drive as master.  I will go to a two-drive configuration only if I get the new drive working by itself.

use a jumper, don't leave the the units to cable select

The new drive does not even have cable select.

check bios to verify that the drives are properly connected

The bios says that the drive is connected.

if i am wrong, the units could be sata, try another cable and other sata port, verify that you are not using sata raid ports on the mainboard if possible and check bios to see if bios sees both drives or sees only one incorrectly reported

Noted above, each drive is IDE, no raid ports, bios reports each drive, and only one drive is connected at a time.

Jan

[T6]

then you should change ide cable to test new results, unfortunately this ide cables can break itself easily and change many times the device connected speed up things, in fact i'm happy that the only ide device i have is a hdd and i don't use it much 

about the drive without cable select, if it has the 3 option jumper it can be set as cable select, usually is no jumper or jumper in the third position(left side) being the first one master(right side) and slave the middle

about the kernel, have you tested a newer kernel?  there is a newer version than the one you have

[Ditzian]

then you should change ide cable to test new results, unfortunately this ide cables can break itself easily and change many times the device connected speed up things, in fact i'm happy that the only ide device i have is a hdd and i don't use it much 

about the drive without cable select, if it has the 3 option jumper it can be set as cable select, usually is no jumper or jumper in the third position(left side) being the first one master(right side) and slave the middle

about the kernel, have you tested a newer kernel?  there is a newer version than the one you have

I will try the cable change.

There is a newer kernel than 2.6.27.31.tex5?

Jan

[T6]

i'm sorry i got confused with another post with a older kernel 

if the drives are lg both and you have in the mainboard two ide ports, connect each one to a port so both can be master

[Ditzian]

i'm sorry i got confused with another post with a older kernel 

if the drives are lg both and you have in the mainboard two ide ports, connect each one to a port so both can be master

The drives are not both LG drives.  I would have to take out the old one to see its name.

I changed the cable--no change.

I then went to the BIOS and changed the drive communication from UDMA4 to Auto--still no change in operation.

There is another IDE port, I will see if the cable reaches.

When I booted, I turned on the mode where PCLinuxos lists its startup activities line by line.  About the last operation showed a failure, but it went by so fast, I do not know what it was.

Jan

[Ditzian]

Here is the current situation.

• Both drives are connected on the same IDE port, DVD as master, CD as slave.
• The DVD drive is not recognized by PCC in its hardware listing, but the CD drive is recognized.
• If I put a CD in the CD tray, it is recognized, and a player plays it, after a delay.
• If I put a video DVD in the DVD drive, it is recognized, but VLC says it cannot find the disk.  I believe that VLC is actually looking in the CD drive.
• If I put a video DVD in the DVD drive, start VLC, and click Media > Open Disc, and make sure that DVD is selected, it plays the DVD in the DVD drive, but the drive blinks for several minutes before the DVD begins to play.
• It is possible to burn an iso in the CD drive using K3B.
• If I put a blank DVD in the DVD drive it is recognized as blank, and K3B shows the burn button when I give it something to burn (I did not actually burn a DVD).

This means that I can read and burn CDs in the CD drive, and read and burn (probably) DVDs in the DVD drive.  I had expected to use only the new DVD drive for everything, but I have no other use for the CD drive, so I have all the functions and I will no longer try to get things working better.  Better is the enemy of good enough.  I still wonder what PCLinuxOS thinks is in the master position of the IDE cable, and why it won't recognize the drive, but will still use it.

Thank  you for the help, T6. 

Jan

[T6]

i don't know why pcc doesn't see the drive, the only reason i find for this is the drive combination you have

keep playing with position of the drive in the ide cable and jumper settings, or just forget the jumper, work as cable select

if the cdrom is not burner, remove it and leave the dvd burner alone, see how system responds to it, there is other options but first the bios must detect the drive properly and that the drive really works well, if the drive is brand new, it could be failing, i had drives doing what you describe(long time to see a dvd)

[Was_Just19]

I know this is marked as solved, but if memory serves there have been reports for quite some time about some LG drives not being properly recognised ...... maybe this is one of those drives?
I do not recall exactly, but believe there were problems in other operating systems too with some LG drives.

A Google search for " LG Burner not working" or some such search will throw up quite a number of hits.

Maybe a firmware update would fix the problem.

regards.

[T6]

i'm going to hit hard here

i already asked if the drives are lg and the answer was no

i am having a firmware problem with my external drive, the firmware upgrade failed with a error in windows  

[Was_Just19]

i'm going to hit hard here

i already asked if the drives are lg and the answer was no

i am having a firmware problem with my external drive, the firmware upgrade failed with a error in windows 

You should not be so hard on yourself ...... self flagellation is unnecessary.

I have an LG multiburner, designed to play and burn CDs and DVDs

The very first sentence of the very first post ........         

You asked if BOTH drives are LG and the answer was no ... just the DVD Burner --- the one giving problems.

regards.

[T6]

ok, a fluff in the wind

what you wrote sounded as if you said that both drives required firmware upgrades(because both are lg) but only one was a possible candidate for this task(the newer is candidate but don't know the model of the drives so no idea)

i hope is wasn't too hard on you 

[Was_Just19]

Haha ....... just keep digging T6 .....   

maybe this is one of those drives?

 

[Ditzian]

Just to answer T6, during the first attempt to get the drive working, a few months ago, I also tried to boot from the LiveCD, and could not do it.  I contacted LG, assuming that I had a bad drive, and I was told that none of their new drives are capable of booting.  I never read this anywhere, it was not in the specifications on the Newegg site, and certainly this would have kept me away from the drive.  Now, all I am trying to do is get some value out of a mistaken purchase.

Perhaps I should see if there is some upgrade, but those usually come in the form of improved drivers, and, since LG does not write any drivers for Linux, and offers no support for Linux, I do not expect any help from that quarter.  I suspect that this is the last LG product that I will buy; I am especially annoyed at LG for hiding the fact that their CD/DVD reader/burner cannot be used to boot from a CD.  On the other hand, if they made that widely known, there would be a warehouse full of unsold LG drives.

With the present configuration, I can boot from a CD.  That alone is a reason to leave both drives in the box.  The second reason is that I will probably step on the old CD drive if I take it out and leave it lying around.

Another word of guidance.  The fact that you volunteered to help someone else with their problem absolves you from any guilt associated from too rapid a perusal of their first post.  You cannot do wrong when you are doing right. 

Jan