Multiple cd burning problems

[Bruno Dusausoy]

I have two IDE drives : /dev/hda is a harddisk and
/dev/hdb (/dev/cdrom) is my cd-writer.
I alse have a SCSI harddisk : /dev/sda
My Ubuntu is installed on /dev/sda2.

First, when I try to burn a cd with nautilus-cd-burner
as a normal user, it tells me :
"Reload rewritable or blank media
Please replace the in-drive media by a rewritable or blank media."
But the cd in the cd-writer _is_ blank.
N-c-b keeps telling me that message.

Then, when I try to burn (as a normal user, again) with cdrecord
in command-line with this command :
"cdrecord -v dev=ATAPI:/dev/cdrom driveropts=burnproof -data image.iso",
I get the following:
"cdrecord: Drive does not support TAO recording.
cdrecord: Illegal write mode for this drive."

Trying again with cdrecord, but this time as root, it works ... not
totally perfectly.
During burning, I see a strange behaviour :
Cdrecord burns 10-15Mbytes, then stop a fraction of second,
the buffer gets empty, the speed decreases,and then it restarts burning.

The results are a low average burning speed and some
buffer underruns (without any bad consequences),
as you can see in this output :
"Average write speed 16.0x
Total of 23 possible drive buffer underruns predicted."

My cd-writer is a 52x.

Weirder : if I burn an iso image placed on my IDE disk,
the burning process is a lot slower, cdrecord
hangs each time a few Mbytes are "burned" (5-6Mbytes)
and the average write speed decreases to reach
6x !!!

I've wondered if this was due to a 2.6.8 kernel problem,
so I installed a 2.6.7 (kernel-image-2.6.7-1-k7
from Ubuntu) ... same problem, but I noticed
a weird message I don't have with 2.6.8 :
"Nov 23 22:43:21 localhost kernel: cdrom: hdb: mrw address space DMA selected
Nov 23 22:43:21 localhost kernel:
Nov 23 22:43:21 localhost kernel: device-mapper: error adding target to table"
The latter is repeated several times.

Because I have a dual-boot Ubuntu/Debian-Sid,
I tried on my Debian (kernel 2.6.7-1-k7, the same as Ubuntu 2.6.7 one).
I have no problem writing an iso (no matter if this iso is placed
on my IDE or SCSI hard disk), it works well and fast.

I still use devfs on my Debian-Sid

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

(In reply to comment #0)
> First, when I try to burn a cd with nautilus-cd-burner
> as a normal user, it tells me :
> "Reload rewritable or blank media
> Please replace the in-drive media by a rewritable or blank media."
> But the cd in the cd-writer _is_ blank.
> N-c-b keeps telling me that message.

Please attach the output from lshal when a blank media is inserted.

> Then, when I try to burn (as a normal user, again) with cdrecord
> in command-line with this command :
> "cdrecord -v dev=ATAPI:/dev/cdrom driveropts=burnproof -data image.iso",
> I get the following:
> "cdrecord: Drive does not support TAO recording.
> cdrecord: Illegal write mode for this drive."
>
> Trying again with cdrecord, but this time as root, it works ... not
> totally perfectly.

Make sure that the permissions on the device are correct, and that you are NOT
using ide-scsi emulation (as was necessary with older kernels).

> Weirder : if I burn an iso image placed on my IDE disk,
> the burning process is a lot slower, cdrecord
> hangs each time a few Mbytes are "burned" (5-6Mbytes)
> and the average write speed decreases to reach
> 6x !!!

It sounds like DMA is not enabled on your IDE disk.

> I've wondered if this was due to a 2.6.8 kernel problem,
> so I installed a 2.6.7 (kernel-image-2.6.7-1-k7
> from Ubuntu) ... same problem, but I noticed
> a weird message I don't have with 2.6.8 :
> "Nov 23 22:43:21 localhost kernel: cdrom: hdb: mrw address space DMA selected
> Nov 23 22:43:21 localhost kernel:
> Nov 23 22:43:21 localhost kernel: device-mapper: error adding target to table"
> The latter is repeated several times.

and apparently DMA *is* enabled on your CD device, at least with the 2.6.7 that
you tried, which sometimes does not work well.

> Because I have a dual-boot Ubuntu/Debian-Sid,
> I tried on my Debian (kernel 2.6.7-1-k7, the same as Ubuntu 2.6.7 one).
> I have no problem writing an iso (no matter if this iso is placed
> on my IDE or SCSI hard disk), it works well and fast.

Ubuntu does not have a 2.6.7 kernel. If you upgraded a Debian system to Ubuntu,
follow the instructions at http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/WartyUpgradeNotes.
If you installed Warty from CD, you would have a 2.6.8.1 kernel.

[Bruno Dusausoy (bdusauso)]

Created an attachment (id=822)
lshal output

[Bruno Dusausoy (bdusauso)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> (In reply to comment #0)

> Please attach the output from lshal when a blank media is inserted.
>
done

> Make sure that the permissions on the device are correct, and that you are NOT
> using ide-scsi emulation (as was necessary with older kernels).
>
ide-scsi is neither in /etc/modules nor in the loaded modules list
Permissions seem to be ok :

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 2004-11-29 10:54 /dev/cdrom -> hdb
brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 3, 64 2004-11-29 10:54 /dev/hdb

And I'm in the "cdrom" group

> It sounds like DMA is not enabled on your IDE disk.
>
well, "hdparm -i /dev/hda |grep -i dma" tells me,
on 2.6.8-1-k7 from Ubuntu :

IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma6

UDMA2 is enabled.

> and apparently DMA *is* enabled on your CD device, at least with the 2.6.7 that
> you tried, which sometimes does not work well.
>
here, too, is the ouptut of "hdparm -i /dev/hdb |grep -i dma"
on 2.6.8-1-k7 from Ubuntu:

IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2

Yes, it seems to be enabled (at least for UDMA)

> Ubuntu does not have a 2.6.7 kernel. If you upgraded a Debian system to Ubuntu,
> follow the instructions at http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/WartyUpgradeNotes.
> If you installed Warty from CD, you would have a 2.6.8.1 kernel.
>
In fact, it has a 2.6.7 kernel, but only in the "universe" repository.
I've installed Ubuntu from the warty cd on a new partition. So it's clean.

Note : I already had some trouble with my SCSI configuration, see bug #8156.
If it can help ...

[Bruno Dusausoy (bdusauso)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > (In reply to comment #0)

> well, "hdparm -i /dev/hda |grep -i dma" tells me,
> on 2.6.8-1-k7 from Ubuntu :
>
It's a 2.6.8.1-3-k7 actually. My mistake.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

I can't think of a reason why you would get that TAO error when running as a
user, but not as root.

[Uphaar Agrawalla (uphaar)]

(In reply to comment #0)
> I have two IDE drives : /dev/hda is a harddisk and
> /dev/hdb (/dev/cdrom) is my cd-writer.
> I alse have a SCSI harddisk : /dev/sda
> My Ubuntu is installed on /dev/sda2.
>
> First, when I try to burn a cd with nautilus-cd-burner
> as a normal user, it tells me :
> "Reload rewritable or blank media
> Please replace the in-drive media by a rewritable or blank media."
> But the cd in the cd-writer _is_ blank.
> N-c-b keeps telling me that message.

Hi,
This bug was fixed in n-c-b when GNOME 2.10 / Hoary was released. It was because
of some issue with the blank CD getting mounted IIRC. Do you still experience
the problem?

[Kai F. Lahmann (kl)]

reopen, if you can still see the bug.

[Bruno Dusausoy (bdusauso)]

n-c-b now works perfectly.
I still can't burn cd's with a non-root account though, I have to burn them
through sudo.
I can also use some frontend (eg. Gnomebaker, it works fine) with a non-root
account.