I've been using Mandriva 2008 for a little while now, and when I built a new pc last weekend I decided to install it exclusively instead of dual booting with windows...well everything works fine, except for the dvd burner. I've been reading online about other people having problems with them, so I've tried everything I came across...enabling DMA, using the chmod command to give K3B su status, it just will not work. I get a wide variety of different errors depending on what I am trying to do. When I try to copy an existing disc it just gives an unknown error, when I try to write files from my drive it says there is a buffer underrun. Out of curiousity I plugged in my old 8x cd burner, and it works fine! I have a brand new lite on 20x dvd rw right out of the box. It reads fine, K3B says there are no configuration problems when it starts...the farthest it gets on a burn is writing a label to the disc, so it basically turns it into a coaster. I've tried different types of media, none of them work, and it won't even simulate a burn. I'm new to linux, so is there something simple I am missing, or is there just some things I need to check on, or will the drive just not work? I'm pulling my hair out over this thing.

Run k3b from a terminal (konsole). This will allow you to view error messages that you would not normally see. What kind of error messages do you see when you try to burn a dvd?

You also need to tell us whether the DVD Drive is IDE or the newer SATA.

Cheers. John.

Hey guys, thanks for your responses. You aren't going to believe this, but when I started up a terminal so that I could get you guys some info on what is going on, fired up k3b, and it burns like a champ now. I can't even recreate the error!!! I have no idea why its working, but I've tried about six times to get it to give me and error and it won't. So I guess I'm good for now, although I'm getting really confused, at least its working

I'll mark this solved for now. Please post if you have anymore problems with it.