DVD drive not detected

[techtramp]

As per title, the external dvd drive is not recognised with a blank disc in, It powers on and the light is on but 'Brasero' cant see the drive.

what to do??

The drive is recognised in the 'Disks' app strangely..

[austin.texas]

You have to make sure that the disc is actually blank.

Alternative burning programs are k3b and xfburn. Both of those have a better reputation than Brasero.

[techtramp]

K3b recognises the drive but says there is 'no medium present' even tho i've tried 2 different blank dvd's

however it has recognised a blank CD so maybe it has a problem with DVD-R's?

[phd21]

Hi "techtramp",

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

Have you ever been able to "burn" a DVD in this drive? Because, some drives are DVD read only and cannot create (burn) a DVD, but can read and write (burn) CD's. The results from the command will tell us.

Hope this helps ...

If you are not using Linux Mint KDE, and want to be able to run some very high quality KDE applications,
then install these few programs below in the quote box in blue, which are perfectly safe for any edition of Linux mint.

If you're experiencing issues with KDE apps (like Okular, Gwenview, KStars, kdenlive, "K3b", etc...)
run the following command from your console terminal prompt: (you can copy & paste it too)
sudo apt-get install kdelibs-bin kdelibs5-data kdelibs5-plugins

Depending on your setup, you might also need to install "KDE-runtime" as well.

[Cosmo.]

The problem might be the backend, that gets used by k3b. The by default installed backend is cdrkit, a package, that is since long not more maintained. cdrkit is in fact a fork of cdrtools, which is still in active development. The reason, that Ubuntu (and it's derivates) use cdrkit is purely a licensing issue, not a technical one. The lack of maintenance for cdrkit can lead to the result, that it cannot handle current media.

For cdrecord the PPA ppa:brandonsnider/cdrtools is needed. By installing the packages cdrecord, mkisofs and cdda2wav the packages wodim, genisoimage and icedax (belonging to cdrkit) get automatically removed.

[techtramp]

Hi "techtramp",

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

Have you ever been able to "burn" a DVD in this drive? Because, some drives are DVD read only and cannot create (burn) a DVD, but can read and write (burn) CD's. The results from the command will tell us.

Hope this helps ...

If you are not using Linux Mint KDE, and want to be able to run some very high quality KDE applications,
then install these few programs below in the quote box in blue, which are perfectly safe for any edition of Linux mint.

If you're experiencing issues with KDE apps (like Okular, Gwenview, KStars, kdenlive, "K3b", etc...)
run the following command from your console terminal prompt: (you can copy & paste it too)
sudo apt-get install kdelibs-bin kdelibs5-data kdelibs5-plugins

Depending on your setup, you might also need to install "KDE-runtime" as well.

Hi "phd21"

here are my results from the inxi -Fxzd promt

"System: Host: forbes-S400CA Kernel: 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Cinnamon 2.8.8 (Gtk 3.10.8~8+qiana) Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
Machine: Mobo: ASUSTeK model: S400CA v: 1.0
Bios: American Megatrends v: S400CA.206 date: 11/28/2012
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i3-2365M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 5587
clock speeds: max: 1400 MHz 1: 800 MHz 2: 800 MHz 3: 800 MHz 4: 1000 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
bus-ID: 00:02.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.15.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.0 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.13.0-24-generic
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
driver: ath9k bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet
driver: alx port: e000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Card-3: Atmel usb-ID: 001-008
IF: null-if-id state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives: HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (13.6% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: Hitachi_HTS54505 size: 500.1GB temp: 33C
Optical: /dev/sr0 model: N/A rev: N/A dev-links: cdrom
Features: speed: 24x multisession: yes
audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw state: N/A
Partition: ID-1: / size: 455G used: 60G (14%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
ID-2: swap-1 size: 4.17GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 53.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 207 Uptime: 3:13 Memory: 1663.9/3836.8MB
Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4 Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.28"


..

[phd21]

Hi "techtramp",

As user "cosmo" just pointed out, using the newer "cdrtools" is a good thing to install anyway, and provides other benefits as well (including blu-ray support), regardless whether having this installed or not may be a reason for your drive not reading discs.

How To Install CDRTools
http://linuxg.net/how-to-install-cdrtoo ... e-systems/
To install "CDRtools" using the PPA method, open a console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:brandonsnider/cdrtools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cdrtools

Hope this helps ...

[phd21]

HI "techtramp",

As I suspected, the drive is not a DVD burner drive, but it can read DVD's. If the drive could read and write DVD's, then the results below after "rw:" would include dvd stuff, like "rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram".

Optical: /dev/sr0 model: N/A rev: N/A dev-links: cdrom
Features: speed: 24x multisession: yes
audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw state: N/A

Fortunately, you can get a good DVD burner drive for around $20us, give or take a few dollars, from places like Amazon.com and other places; a blu-ray/dvd/cd burner would cost more, but would be worth it.

[techtramp]

LoL schoolboy error on my part then Its my sisters drive actually trust her to get a re-writeable CD with DVD rom !!

[phd21]

HI "techtramp",

Not a problem, still glad to help...

FYI: The external USB DVD/Blu-ray/CD burner drives work well in Linux Mint too. Then, you do not even have to open the computer to switch drives.