Not Recognizing Blank CDs

[billythekid]

Hi Everyone,

I have been having trouble recognizing blank CDR CDs. I was trying to burn an ISO using K3B but I am told that there is no media in the drive. The drive works and has burned many things before; that is not the problem. If I put in an audio CD, I get the system menu (KDE auto discovery, I think) that asks what I wish to do, and it can be played fine.

For some reason the CDR disks I am using seem not to be recognized by the system. I have tried about five for them from a stack of 100 disks. None of them are recognized. These are CD-R's from SONY and I am wondering whether I have a bunch of dud CDRs on my hand, and whether there is an easy way to check this.

Assuming for a moment that these disks are fine, is there some set of commands that can force the harddrive to look for media that it cannot detect (sound sort of paradoxical, I know). Also, has anyone else had problem with SONY branded CDRs on linux machines - could there be some initial code that is not recognized, for example?

don't know if there is a hardware or software solution but I would appreciate any advice (seems like a waste to toss a stack of CDs).

best
btk

[paul matthijsse]

Hi, first try some other burning software, like GnomeBaker, and see if that helps.

Paul.

[billythekid]

Thanks Paul.

When I put another CD in the drive, an audio CD for example, Fedora will mount it so that it is visible in the /media/hdb folder. When I add a blank disc, this folder is not created. I did uninstall and reinstall K3B but I don't think it is at the software level. The CD is just not being recognzed. Also, I a music CD I had burned from a CDR disc (memorex, this time) and found that this CD is not recognized by the system either (no auto response, not mounted. not recognized, no sweet tunes).

I guess I am curious to know if there is some early amount of code on a blank CD that says "ey,yo!, I'm blank" and if, for some reason, my system is unable to determine this. Is there a system command for the drive that will allow it to scan for a disc even if this code is absent. I am not sure how drives detect CDs and therefore how to troubleshoot this problem.

thanks

[lazlow]

Billy

It may be that the drive has gone bad. If you dual boot I would check it on the other os. If it is not recognizing disks that it recognized before (your cdr music) this not a good sign.

[paul matthijsse]

Try another cd as well (another brand), perhaps the stack you bought doesn't like linux or vice versa.

[billythekid]

thanks guys. I think the disks are all bad. No drive seems to recognize them although at least one other person in the lab has been using them.....successfully? I will have to ask.

As for my drive, the verdict will await some decent CDRs.

Laslow, Paul, thanks for your input.