Re: Fatal error while burning CD

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

i wrote:
> > What were your exact cdrskin arguments ?

Michael Lange wrote:
> cdrskin -v -dummy -eject dev=/dev/sr0 -sao speed=10 '04 Pujeva.wav' \
>        sao_pregap=75 '05 New Pulse.wav' sao_pregap=225 '07 Rocket \
>        Keronian.wav' '10 Dodo.wav'

Looks quite unsuspicious. The sao_pregap= options might be rarely used.
Option -dummy might bring the drive into a state where it pretends that
the medium is written and has a non-empty table-of-content. But this
illusion should end after ejection of the medium.


> I repeated the exact same command immediately afterwards with the same
> disc, and the second time it finished without errors.

I am quite sure that cdrskin acts deterministically. So if the same
preconditions yield a different outcome then i would blame it on the drive.
Given that -dummy was used, i expect not much influence by the actual
quality of the medium. (The error key 5 "Illegal Request" indicates a
problem between firmware and burn program, anyway.)

The fact that it accepted 34 WRITE(10) commands before it complains about
the 35th makes me think that the error occurs when the drive actually
begins to write. But error key 5 does not really match this occasion.
It stays a riddle.


> $ cdrskin dev=/dev/sr0 -minfo 2>&1 | tee -i /tmp/cdrskin_minfo
> ...
> Vendor_info    : 'PLEXTOR'
> Identifikation : 'DVDR PX-810SA'
> Revision       : '1.01'

According to Google this drive iseems to have appeared around 2006.
How old is yours ?


> Maybe I should add that this or similar errors (I at least
> clearly remember the "Sense key 5") occured with cdrdao with
> blanks of different manufacturers.

I'd expect cdrdao to act deterministically, too.


> Once I tried to let cdrdao just finish
> without interrupting it and to my utter surprise it produced a CD that
> when inserted into the CD-player was recognized and reported with the
> expected track count and duration.

Looks like the table-of-content was sucessfully written. With SAO this
happens before data writing begins.


So yes, you should consider to get a new drive.
DVD drives are cheap nowadays. Last time i got one, i had to send it back
because of being unreliable with reading what it wrote. The replacement
works well. (I suspect that the bad one was sent to the next customer.
Nobody was interested in my problem report.)

Personally, i'd rather get a BD drive for about 5 times the price.
But if you are mainly into audio CD burning, this would be overdone.
In any case, test it with all your intended use cases, as soon as it
arrives.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas