Can read burned discs on only one machine and WinXP

[besonian]

Here's a new one on me - yet another  I'm using xFce 2010, but I doubt this is anything to do with what DE I'm using. I burned a data CD in Brasero. Result is the only machine I can read it on is the one I burned it on - and I tried it on three others, all running xFce. (And as far as I'm aware each session was closed OK). Same thing happened when I tried a burn with Xfburn - and likewise using K3b - which I downloaded in order just to try and get a handle on this. None of the other three machines even report seeing anything on the disc - as far as they're concerned each one is empty. WinXP however, which I run from time to time in Virtual box - reads each of the three burned discs perfectly, no problem - so the stuff's all there. So I'm left thinking is it some Linux permissions thing, maybe to do with devices??? But I'm lost here. All the xFce installs are relatively recent, and it's the first time I've burned a disk using it - is there a clue in there somewhere - like some xFce config tweak I should have done and haven't?

[marrandy]

Your CD burner is out of spec. aka 'its failing'.

Swap it out for a new one ASAP - because when it fails, as you have found, items burned using it won't be visible on other machines.

Basically, put a second burner in and do a disk to disk copy of all the CD's not identified by the other machines.

Then test the new copies in the other machines.

But get your skates on before it totally craps out.

[pags]

Your CD burner is out of spec. aka 'its failing'.

Swap it out for a new one ASAP - because when it fails, as you have found, items burned using it won't be visible on other machines.

Basically, put a second burner in and do a disk to disk copy of all the CD's not identified by the other machines.

Then test the new copies in the other machines.

But get your skates on before it totally craps out.

If that is the case, and the drive is still reading its own discs (and if there is enough drive space), I would recommend making ISO images of the problem CDs (which should then be able to be burned to a new disc when there is a new burner available).

NOTE: This is some conjecture on my part (I haven't tested it!).  But if the structure is sound (but out spec, and the out-of-spec is being compensated for by the device -- such as a laser misalignment, for example), this should work.
(In theory  )

[besonian]

OK guys, thank you. But assuming you're right and the burner is going AWOL how is it that WinXP (which is in Virtual Box on the machine on which the burns were done) reads the CD's perfectly? I'd assumed that as Windows reads all three discs OK, the source of the problem lay somehow with the Linux install on that machine. But maybe the OS has nothing to do with it and if the burner's on it's way out, it's on its way out for both OS's - which, as I think about it, seems like common sense. Have I answered my own query here? I'm tired and it's time I went to bed, but that's how it's seeming. But confirmation or otherwise would be welcome. 

[Was_Just19]

OK guys, thank you. But assuming you're right and the burner is going AWOL how is it that WinXP (which is in Virtual Box on the machine on which the burns were done) reads the CD's perfectly? I'd assumed that as Windows reads all three discs OK, the source of the problem lay somehow with the Linux install on that machine. But maybe the OS has nothing to do with it and if the burner's on it's way out, it's on its way out for both OS's - which, as I think about it, seems like common sense. Have I answered my own query here? I'm tired and it's time I went to bed, but that's how it's seeming. But confirmation or otherwise would be welcome. 

Reading your first post it appeared that Linux on the burning machine could read the three discs as well as XP on the same machine.
No OS on another machine could read the discs.

Is that not correct?

[marrandy]

OK guys, thank you. But assuming you're right and the burner is going AWOL how is it that WinXP (which is in Virtual Box on the machine on which the burns were done) reads the CD's perfectly? I'd assumed that as Windows reads all three discs OK, the source of the problem lay somehow with the Linux install on that machine. But maybe the OS has nothing to do with it and if the burner's on it's way out, it's on its way out for both OS's - which, as I think about it, seems like common sense. Have I answered my own query here? I'm tired and it's time I went to bed, but that's how it's seeming. But confirmation or otherwise would be welcome. 

Because, as you state, its on the same machine and therefore its the same drive. 

[besonian]

JohnBoy - almost correct. On the burning machine, (burned with three different Linux burners) both xFce and WinXP (in Virtual Box) could read all three discs. None of the other three machines - all running xFce - could read any of the discs.

And marrandy - thank you.I'll take it from there and re-burn one disc on another xFce machine. I'll see what machine(s) then will read that disc. Then I'll report back here.

Thank you both for your input.

[Was_Just19]

But assuming you're right and the burner is going AWOL how is it that WinXP (which is in Virtual Box on the machine on which the burns were done) reads the CD's perfectly? I'd assumed that as Windows reads all three discs OK, the source of the problem lay somehow with the Linux install on that machine.

If Linux AND XP on the one machine can read the discs, but the discs cannot be read on any other machine, the implication is that the problem is either Hardware (in the first place) on the burning machine or some fault (same one) in the OS installations on all the other machines.

regards.

[besonian]

JohnBoy - I agree absolutely with your analysis. However, it seems, on the face of it at least, an almost impossibly long coincidence that the same fault can exist in the OS on three separate machines when in all other respects those machines work perfectly. And to add another confusion to it - this morning I put those same three discs in yet another machine - this time running LXDE and not xFce as the others - and the result is the same! They are either not seen at all, or are seen but the OS reports their being empty.

But it gets worse. Also this morning I burned the same data as on yesterdays three discs to another disc, this time in a Dell Inspiron running xFce, one of the machines which will not run the first three discs. I did this hoping that the problem lay only with the burner on the machine which burned those first three discs. But once again, although the Inspiron reads the disc burned on itself, that disc is not read by any other of the four machines.

I can't get my head around this. It's like there's some permissions thing to do with burners - however crazy that seems - which is misconfigured. The next step would seem to be to download the xFce ISO once again, burn another image - not on that first machine - re-install on one of the machines and then see how things go. And obviously, any other suggestion would be extremely welcome.  I've got almost 200 images of a family memorial service which the family is as anxious to get sight of as I am to get them to them.

(Or are the blank CD's corrupt? I'll leave that thought till later)

[besonian]

I'm adding this now, not because it helps clarify things, rather because - in my mind at least - it makes it all even harder to figure out what's up short of there being more than one fault on more than one machine.

I booted up a test machine on which I have KDE4 installed. With K3b, once again I burned the same data. This disc runs fine on itself, but is not seen by the Dell Inspiron running xFce. 'Ha!' I thought, 'there's something up with the xFce install.' So, in order to hopefully confirm that, I put the KDE burned disc in the first machine - I'm sure I've lost anybody reading this by now - which produced the first three suspect burns yesterday - and just to confuse me even further,  it read it, no problem.

I'm now giving this up for the time being. I'm going to hope that if I burn all the CD's I need on the KDE machine, they are going to be generally readable by others. I can see no real pattern in this, apart from maybe there's something cockeyed about my xFce installs and maybe the LXDE one as well. If anybody can help me find some sense in it I'd be delighted. The only other thing I can think is that there is some disc/device configuration thing I should check -but that's beyond my skills at the moment. And if I get the time and energy over this weekend I'll download the xFce ISO once again, do a new burn of it, and do another install. 

[besonian]

And finally  - I've just put the three disks which started off this saga, which were burned on the first machine, and which would read in no other machine, into the drive of the test machine running KDE4 and they all are read immediately there! Which now makes me suspect the fault(s) could lie with the three other xFce machines and the LXDE machine. More than that my brain won't cope with at the moment. I'm going to lie down in a darkened room.

[wwwauthor]

just random thoughts:
------------------------

xfce, kde4(k3b), virtualbox(windows)

pattern i am seeing is this ...

Rock Ridge, and Joliet and or udf support being native in windows and k3b is able to write them all.

Just maybe the xfce distro, is lacking support or the burning tools used are lacking settings in these respects.

[besonian]

wwwauthor - thank you. Having returned from my darkened room   - what you say rings some sort of bell. I suspect you know a lot more about this than I do but that sort of thing - like it could be some setting in the burning software of those other DE's - would make sense. Not quite sure how I go about checking all that, but I'll give it a go. And further to that - in a mood of what the hell, let's try anything - one by one I put all the disks I've burned during this pantomime into the KDE4 machine - and it reads them all. Maybe I'm getting somewhere.

[Was_Just19]

Check one of the Xfce installs to see if  udftools, dvd+rw-tools   are installed.

If not install those packages and see if that helps the situation.

regards.

[besonian]

JohnBoy - I'm not at that same location now, and won't be until middle of next week. However, I did install udftools on the machine I'm now on - also running xFce - (dvd+rw-tools is already installed), then burned the same data to a CD. The machine reads its own disc ok, and an old T21 Thinkpad running the latest version of LXDE (but not having udftools installed) also reads it! However, I've brought the Inspiron laptop with me and although that has the latest xFce on it - that doesn't even see the disc! So whether installing udftools has had any effect it really impossible to tell. This whole thing seems so riddled with inconsistencies. Does it have something to do with the light DE's as wwwauthor has suggested? But if so, am I the only one experiencing this?? Difficult to believe. And I would believe it to be a hardware problem but I can find no pattern in that. I hope one of the devs comes along and can throw some light on this. Sunday lies before me - I'll investigate more. That's if the brain holds up.