HP dvd300e horror story
To all potential buyers of the HP dvd300e BEWARE. I rendered two brand
new dvd300e's useless when incorrectly burning DVDs. I think this is
caused by faulty firmware on the drives. Here is my account of trying to
use this DVD+R/RW burner with Linux:
I obtained my first drive for Christmas 2003. As soon as I could I began
playing with it with my Linux laptop running a custom 2.4.22-18mdk
kernel for my laptop specifics and WG511 802.11g driver support. I had
no success with firewire initially, but as soon as I plugged the DVD
burner into USB2.0 it showed up beautifully. With some playing, I was
able to rip an Audio CD with grip, burn a CD-R with gnome-toaster, and
watch a DVD movie with mplayer all with minimal effort. If this is all
you want out of the drive STOP here. But if you're like me you actually
want to burn DVD's read on.
I was aware there were firmware updates available on HP's support FTP,
but assumed because this was a brand new drive, no updates were
necessary. Additionally, because I did not have access to a Windows PC I
did not update the firmware on the first DVD I had. I had many problems
trying to use dvd+rw-format with DVD+R media for what I now know are
obvious reasons. As soon as a put a DVD+RW disc inside the drive and ran
dvd+rw-format /dev/scd0 I got further, but the disc failed formatting
after only 2 minutes. (Can't remember the exact error) I tried running a
script I found for burning a bunch of mpg files to a video DVD format
and after that my dvd burner was toast.
The following script was run:
### \begin create_dvd.sh ###
#!/bin/csh
#
# Burn a DVD from a set of MPEG files
# Note: Uses disk bookmark resetting to fool some dumb players
#
# Input:
# 1-255: MPEG files to be chapters of DVD
#
dvddirgen -o tmp_dvd -r
dvdauthor -o tmp_dvd $argv
dvdauthor -o tmp_dvd -T
dvd+rw-format -force /dev/scd0
dvd+rw-booktype -dvd-rom-spec -unit+rw /dev/scd0
growisofs -speed=1 -dvd-compat -overburn -Z /dev/scd0 -R -udf -dvd-video
tmp_dvd
rm -rf tmp_dvd
### \end create_dvd.sh ###
I didn't have any disc in the drive (oops), so lots of the commands
complained about "No Medium Found". I was left with a dvd300e which just
blinked it's single LED activity light continuously, the eject button
didn't eject the tray, unplugging the USB cables made no change, and
removing power and re-applying power just brought the drive back to the
same "Blinkey" state. I believe the failure was caused by the
dvd+rw-booktype command. I can't verify this, but this is my gut feeling
right now.
I packed up all the cable and manuals, got the receipt and got a
replacement unit from Office Max.
The very first thing I did was to upgrade the firmware of the dvd300e to
version 3.00. From Windows XP everything looked pretty good. I then
plugged the External DVD-Writer into my Linux Laptop via USB2.0 and was
success at burning data to the DVD+RW (Rewritable) media which came with
the box. Writing the data involved formatting and using `growisofs`.
$ dvd+rw-format /dev/scd0
$ growisofs -dvd-compat -overburn -Z /dev/scd0 -R -udf Pictures/
Everything went smoothly. I was able to mount the DVD and read the
information just fine.
I packed up the laptop and drive to bring it home. At home I wanted to
burn some data to an HP branded DVD+R media. I first set the book-type
to dvd+r spec with
$ dvd+rw-booktype -dvd+r-spec -unit+r /dev/scd0
*BLINKEY BLINKEY*
$ growisofs -dvd-compat -overburn -Z /dev/scd0 -R -udf tmp/
> Failed burning.
Again, the drive is toast. It exhibits the exact same behavior as the
first failed drive. I was left with a dvd300e which just blinked it's
single LED activity light continuously, the eject button didn't eject
the tray, unplugging the USB cables made no change, and removing power
and re-applying power just brought the drive back to the same "Blinkey"
state.
I sat on the phone on hold waiting for HP Support for 30 minutes, only
to be told to take the unit back to where I bought it after I explained
the situation. So I took the second drive back to Office Max. I didn't
get a replacement, but I'm waiting for better firmware, or tools which
don't blow the firmware away.
So given this story, I have come to this (possibly incorrect) conclusion
that setting booktype on the hp dvd300e blows the firmware up. Any
suggestions or recommendations are welcome.
--
Joshua Norige <jnorige@u.washington.edu>
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