Problems with multiple cd-rw drives

[zenbound]

big linux fan, even bigger mandriva fan but i've come to a problem i can't solve. i've raided the forums since normally i find the answers i need here, but i guess i'm just using the wrong key words. i have a cd-rw and a dvd-r drive. when using mandriva with kde, k3b works like a dream, but i prefer gnome as my desktop environment. i have everything purring smoothly except when i try to burn a cd. brasero opens smooth enough, but when i put a blank cd-r in my cd-rw drive, gnome thinks its in the dvd drive and vice versa. i've tried several work arounds but even when both drives have blank cds in them, (dvd drive can write cds as well just a little slower.) the burn appears to be successful but nothing is written to the cds. i'm not sure what kind of troubleshooting to perform but i have a feeling its a problem with gnome-volume-manager. i'm writing this post from my phone, so please forgive the lack of code output. i'm open to any suggestions and can provide any information/output that might help me out but i'm not too sure what is relevant. thanks for your time any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks again -zen

Edited January 27, 2008 by zenbound

[edwardp]

Welcome to MandrivaUsers.org!

 

I'm assuming the reference to the DVD drive is read-only (DVD-R). Check the jumpers on the back of both drives. Make sure the DVD drive jumper is on master (MA) and the CD-RW jumper is set to slave (SL).

 

Also check the ribbon cable. The plug at the end of the cable should be going into the master drive and the secondary plug a few inches down the cable should be plugged into the slave drive. In my desktops, I have the CD-ROM drives in the top bays and the CD-RW drives in the bays below.

 

I use Gnome on both of my desktops and when burning an image (e.g. a new Mandriva Linux release) to the CD-RW drive, I right-click the .ISO file and select "Write to disc". It goes right to the CD-RW drive.

Edited January 27, 2008 by edwardp

[zenbound]

Thanks, I went ahead and checked the hardware connections even though the configuration works fine under windows and KDE and everything seems secure. Sadly my problem isn't with burning ISOs its burning audio discs. I'll reiterate the problem now that I'm on my computer.

 

I insert a blank disc into my DVD-R (incapable of writing DVDs but is capable of writing CD-R/CD-RWs) and I'll get a prompt from gnome, "Choose disc type: You have inserted a blank disc" (so we can see that the computer knows I've put a disc in, making me further convinced its not a hardwired problem), I select "make audio disc" and it launches my prefered application for audio disc creation (brasero). I can compile the songs I want to burn, Brasero loads them all successfully. I click the nifty burn button down there at the bottom and it pops up with

 

"Select a Drive to write to;" (combo box drop down)

HL-DT-ST GCE-8483B (Properties)

Type: CD-R

Size: 702.8 MB Free

Contents; empty

Status: the medium can be recorded

Title: ..."

 

Also in the combo box I can select "SONY DVD RW DRU-810A" Which as the name would suggest is my DVD drive that that blank disc is in. When I select the DVD drive, brasero tells me that the drive is empty.

 

So to summarize: Brasero (and gnome in general) gets my drives flip flopped. It reads from them fine, but when I try to write to a disc, it tries to activate the wrong drive and the burn fails. If I put blank discs in both drives and commit the project anyway, the software buffer goes through the motions but nothing is written to the disc.

 

If I just let the project go with the defaults (try to burn the audio to where brasero/gnome thinks the blank disc is) it will get 50% of the way through the process (audio conversions I assume), but as soon as the drive is initialized at 51%, I get the error;

The disc in "HL-DT-ST GCE-8483B" is not writable:

replace the disc with a recordable CD with a least 700 MiB free.

 

well as we know the real problem is that there is no disc in HL-DT-ST GCE-8483B.

 

glancing through the logs, no relevant errors are in dmesg or the system log viewer.

 

Ideas????????

[AussieJohn]

Hello Edward.

Just a point about the links on the optical drives. The cable positions referred to only apply if the links on the drives are not set.

Immediately the links are set to Master and Slave then it over rides the cable position information.

So with Master and Slave links set, the drives can be in any position on the cable.

In fact experience has shown that the link usage is far more stable than the cable position usage.

 

Hello Zenbound.

Even though you use Gnome, there is NO reason why you can't use K3B as well. Remember this is not Windows. :D

Cheers. John.

[zenbound]

sadly i need to replace my keyboard. any time i install the the kde core files the keyboard freezes. I have to reboot to get the keyboard to start responding, so that's why I'm switching over to gnome. that and i love gnome. much cleaner, much more dependable.

Edited January 27, 2008 by zenbound

[edwardp]

AussieJohn - Thank you for the info regarding the cable positions/jumpers, that is good information to have. What I posted, is how I have always set everything up in my desktops. :)

 

zenbound - I use Gnome because I found it to run faster on the desktops, especially on Desktop 1 where the CPU is slow by today's standards, but on Desktop 1, I only use the main panel (Applications/Places/System) at the top. When I added a second panel (positioned at the bottom of the screen), it slowed the system down a little bit, just enough to notice.

 

I just realized that the drive in my laptop is the same as you describe, it will read and write to CD's, but is read-only for DVD's. I'll have to try writing something to a CD to see what it does. As I use the "Write to disc" command, I'm not sure what it uses specifically to write to the CD itself, but there is a second selection to create a CD, I'll use that to see what happens.

Edited January 27, 2008 by edwardp

[zenbound]

Am I not being clear enough? none of the posts are *quite* relevant.

[zenbound]

Also, I know its not a brasero problem because when right clicking the blank disc on the desktop, clicking the drive tab, gnome lists the model as the opposite drive as what its in.

[edwardp]

If I just let the project go with the defaults (try to burn the audio to where brasero/gnome thinks the blank disc is) it will get 50% of the way through the process (audio conversions I assume), but as soon as the drive is initialized at 51%, I get the error;

The disc in "HL-DT-ST GCE-8483B" is not writable:

replace the disc with a recordable CD with a least 700 MiB free.

 

well as we know the real problem is that there is no disc in HL-DT-ST GCE-8483B.

 

glancing through the logs, no relevant errors are in dmesg or the system log viewer.

 

Ideas????????

 

I'm lost. :unsure:

 

Have you repeated the project, but placing the blank CD in the drive first? During this initialization process (which is the first I've heard of something like this), it probably does something to the CD before it starts to write what is actually going to be written to it and if it doesn't find a blank CD, reports back that error.

 

Try putting the CD in first (if you haven't tried this method yet) and report back.

[edwardp]

Also, I know its not a brasero problem because when right clicking the blank disc on the desktop, clicking the drive tab, gnome lists the model as the opposite drive as what its in.

 

I would expect to see a pull-down menu if more than one drive is installed.

Edited January 27, 2008 by edwardp

[zenbound]

The same thing happends. after inserting the audio cd, I am prompted by gnome to see what I want to do with it. I click "make audio cd" throw sum tracks in brasero, click burn, it will display either the DVD drive or the CD-RW drive, whichever the CD isn't in. If I run brasero before loading the CD, it makes no difference.

[zenbound]

Anybody else wanna take a stab?

[scarecrow]

Sure.

Just use K3B, or shed $20 and buy NeroLinux.

Now why you should pay for buying something that is much worse to K3B (for example it refuses to burn any MP3 files with non-unicode tags for ages, and this has NOT been fixed yet!) is beyond my poor imagination...