Last Attempt at fixing DVD drives before abandoning Fedora Core

[Richard Hubbell]

On 7/23/05, Dave Gutteridge <dave at tokyocomedy.com> wrote:
> 
> Okay, this is it. As much as I am rooting for Fedora Core to be a stable
> (enough) desktop environment, the inability to reliably read DVDs is a
> deal breaker. I am making one last ditch effort to see if anyone can
> help, but if not, I'm going to have to give up on Fedora.
> 
> I hope someone can help out here and at least give me a reason why my
> DVD drives are not working, if not solve them, so that I can assess
> whether or not I'm liable to encounter the same problem with another
> distribution of Linux (which is why I haven't already switched).


Feel your pain, I gave up on my external USB dvd burner. I spent $40 on
an IDE dual-layer burner and it works.  USB mass storage devices seem to
be busted.  I've seen others with problems and even a mention of spurious
timeouts.  Apparently firewire is more stable.  IDE I know to be stable.
Where to point the finger though?  I don't know if it's USB mass storage
devices in general or the linux kernel.  

As for stability with fedora...the two words really can't go together.
Fedora is a testbed for redhat, that's no secret.

I expect to wait to see the problems of USB mass storage to get sorted out.

> 
> This will be the most complete description of the problem, and if this
> doesn't do it, then I have to call it quits.
> 
> 1. The Set Up:
> Fedora Core 4, complete yum update as of minutes before writing this
> email, latest kernel.
> Desktop PC, Pentium III, 600Mhz.
> 
> 
> 2. The Problem:
> When I put any kind of DVD, whether it's data or video, into my DVD
> drives, they work poorly or not at all. Data CDs and Audio CDs work
> fine, and I can even *write* DVDs on my external DVD player and burn CDs
> on my other drives.
> It's only in reading DVDs that the problem arrises.
> External USB DVD drive: Will usually show the DVD icon on the desktop,
> but copying data is extremely slow and will almost always fail. I have
> succeeded maybe once or twice in copying data from a DVD when the amount
> of data is less than 100 MB. But not reliably, and not in any pattern
> that I can reproduce.
> Internal DVD 1: Putting a DVD in this drive causes the light to flash as
> if it is reading, but no icon comes up and it does not become
> accessible. Ejection is impossible unless I reboot and press the front
> eject button during the power on sequence, or if I force an ejection by
> inserting a pin into the manual eject hole on the front of the drive.
> This DVD drive is on the sequence of boot devices (between floppy disk
> and before hard drive), so if there is a DVD present in the time of
> booting, it will delay the boot process by five to ten minutes and
> eventually show an error before booting.
> Internal DVD 2: Will spend about a minute reading the DVD before an icon
> shows up on the desktop. Copying takes a long time (at least twice the
> time it takes to copy the same number of files under Windows XP), but it
> will actually complete. However, while it is copying files, it seems to
> slow the whole system down, to the point where mouse movement and typing
> is delayed.
> 
> In Xine, when attempting to play a DVD, or an audio CD from my DVD
> drive, I get the following error:
> There is no plugin available to handle 'dvd:/'. Maybe MRC syntax is
> wrong or file/stream dource does not exist.
> 
> I hope someone will be able to figure out what the issue is and help me
> get this resolved.
> 
> Dave
> 
> Additional info:
> Here is what is in the auto.misc file:
> cd        -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev    :/dev/cdrom
> 
> Here is the result of ls -l /dev/dvd:
> [root at localhost dev]# ls -l /dev/dvd
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Jul 14 2005 /dev/dvd -> hdb
> 
> Here are the results of hdparm:
> [root at localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvd
> /dev/dvd:
> 
> Model=RICOH DVD/CDRW MP9060, FwRev=1.50, SerialNo=
> Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
> RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
> BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
> CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
> IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
> PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
> DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
> AdvancedPM=no
> 
> * signifies the current active mode
> 
> [root at localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvd1
> 
> /dev/dvd1:
> 
> Model=SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-608, FwRev=bp22, SerialNo=
> Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
> RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
> BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
> (maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
> IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
> PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
> DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
> AdvancedPM=no
> 
> * signifies the current active mode
> 
> [root at localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvd2
> 
> /dev/dvd2:
> HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Invalid argument
> [root at localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvdwriter
> 
> /dev/dvdwriter:
> HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Invalid argument
> 
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