Re: DVD recording adventures continued

[Andy Polyakov <appro@fy.chalmers.se>]

> Just ejecting and reloading disc leads to a status reset, and the
> medium again is recognized as blank and can be recorded with growisofs.

Don't take any chances, *always* reload media after burns, especially
after unsuccessful once as recording program won't do it for you.

> So, now with growisofs (and only with this) I can record + and - as
> it seems. You might suppose I'm a happy guy now? Guess what happened
> next: with a new DVD+R brand (Imation), the disc recorded at 4x with
> growisofs until 100%, and then failed on closing session. Details
> see below. Yeah. Any chance for recovery this time?

Well...

> *** DVD+R Imation endgame
> /dev/scd0: flushing cache
> /dev/scd0: closing track
> /dev/scd0: closing session
> :-( unable to CLOSE SESSION (Fh/FFh/FFh): Input/output error

As pointed out in another thread (look for "Plextor PX-504A can't write
2nd session" at
http://lists.debian.org/cdwrite/2003/cdwrite-200311/threads.html) the
error code of FFFFFFFF, or F/FF/FF for that matter, "essentially means
that there was a communication problem between kernel and recording
unit. At transport level I'd say." In that case it was some kind of
USB<->IDE gadget which caused the trouble (user confirmed this in
private mail). No, I'm not saying that you have USB<->IDE gadget too,
but it doesn't change that fact that it's "a failure at transport
level." Might be firmware deficiency, might be IDE misconfiguration in
your system:

> kernel: hdc: ATAPI reset timed-out, status=0x80
> kernel: ide1: reset: master: ECC circuitry error
> 
> *** resulting coaster (not recognized by any system)
> INQUIRY:                [PLEXTOR ][DVDR   PX-708A  ][1.02]
> - [unable to READ DVD STRUCTURE#0 (52400)]

As mentioned earlier, lack of lead-in renders media inaccesible.

> READ TRACK INFORMATION[#1]:
>  Track Size:            1984640*2KB

Track Size is N*16, it might be possible to save the media. Save the
attached program to dvd+rw-tools source catalog and compile it with 'g++
-o close close.cpp' and execute './close /dev/dvd' replacing /dev/dvd
with your device. Do *not* treat the attached program as an extra tool,
but as one-time application. A.

#include "transport.hxx"

int main(int argc,char *argv[])
{ Scsi_Command cmd;
  int err;

    if (!cmd.associate(argv[1])) perror("can't open"),exit(1);

    page05_setup (cmd);

    cmd[0]=0x5B;
    cmd[1]=0x1;
    cmd[2]=0x2;
    cmd[9]=0;

    if (err=cmd.transport()) printf("2. %x\n",err),exit(1);

    if (wait_for_unit (cmd,NULL)) return 1;
}