# Native SCSI-DVD reads CD's but no DVD's

## GOS

Hi guys,

first of all, excuse my english. It's not my native language and I don't use it often  :Rolling Eyes: , 

My problem is the following:

I use a native SCSI-DVD (Toshiba SD-M1401) on the 50pin narrow bus of an Adaptec 29160N SCSI-controller. I use Gnome and if I try to mount a CD in this drive, everything works well, but if I try to mount a DVD, it doesn't work. (I use gentoo-sources-2.6.34-r6)

In this case Gnome shoes me sometimes the following error message (but not allways):

```
DBus error org.gtk.Private.RemoteVolumeMonitor.Failed: An operation is already pending
```

In the case, that the error message doesn't come up, the status led on the DVD-drive shines continuusly, but the DVD won't be mounted. 

If I try to mount a DVD at the shell (e.g. tty1) with the mount command, then i get the same problem. The DVD will not be mounted, the drive LED shines continuusly. If i use dmesg during the mounting process, it says me the following:

```
sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Unhandled sense code

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: Random positioning error

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 23 12 7e 00 00 02 00

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 9193976

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 1149247
```

I tested, that the hardware of the DVD-drive works, by using it in Windows XP on the same system. Everything works well.

When i boot with Sabayon-gentoo Live DVD Linux, i get the same problem. Also another Kernel doesn't help (I tested it with vanilla-source 2.6.35.3 and gentoo-sources 2.6.35-r6)

any ideas?

thanks in anticipation and best regards 

GOS

----------

## NeddySeagoon

GOS,

Welcome to Gentoo.

Either the DVD you are trying to mount is damaged or the DVD laser in in your drive has failed.

Try the following.

1. Try the DVD in a different drive

2. Try to mount a different DVD. A 'pressed' one is best.

3. Clean the drive optics with a special drive cleaning CD.

If all of those fail, it would appear that your DVD laser has failed.

WARNING: All of the lasers are invisible and none of them are eye safe. 

Do not even think about operating the drive with the cover removed.

----------

## GOS

Hello,

tanks for your answer. 

The DVD-drive couldn't be damaged. When i boot Windows XP or knoppix linux (a CD live linux version) on the same machine with the same DVD-drive, the drive works properly and everything is fine. (I tested this with many different DVD-medias)

And when i try it with ansother SCSI-DVD-drive in this machine with gentoo linux (last world update yesterday) the same problem orccurs. 

So it's proofed, that the error comes from gentoo and not from the DVD-drive. 

What is essential to use a SCSI-DVD with gentoo linux?

Best regards

GOS

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## krinn

check that:

 *Quote:*   

> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR_VENDOR:
> 
> This enables the usage of vendor specific SCSI commands. This is
> 
> required to support multisession CDs with old NEC/TOSHIBA cdrom
> ...

 

----------

## Corona688

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> WARNING: All of the lasers are invisible and none of them are eye safe. 
> 
> Do not even think about operating the drive with the cover removed.

  The laser for reading/writing DVD's is visible red.  (and still dangerous as heck.  laser pointers are <1mw, DVD burner can be >200mw)  </nitpick>

----------

## GOS

@ krinn:  

I checked that, but is doesn't impove the situation. The errors are the same as before. 

A craze of mine is, that two opperations occur at the same time on the DVD-drive, because gnome reports:

```
DBus error org.gtk.Private.RemoteVolumeMonitor.Failed: An operation is already pending
```

Could it be, that this is a problem around automountig or something (the new gnome versions mount's every media automaticly). 

But on the other hand, i tested without xdm in default runlevel and the problems are still the same, when i try to mount by hand on tty !?!?

I searched with google, and found many ubuntu users with the same error message, but no solution of this problem. 

Any other ideas?

Thanks and best greetings 

GOS

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## NeddySeagoon

GOS,

That your drive can read/write CDs says nothing about its ability to read/write DVDs.

Everything except the lasers are the same. The drive hides the media type from the operating system, unless you need to write, then the OS needs to know things about empty space.

In short, there are no special DVD only settings.

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## GOS

@ NeddySeagoon

I testet now the drive with many CD's and DVD's and i have to correct my failure description. In both cases with CD's and DVD's the failure occur, but when the drive reads CD's the failure doesn't come up at all times, so i didn't observe this error unitl now. Gnome says in most cases 

```
DBus error org.gtk.Private.RemoteVolumeMonitor.Failed: An operation is already pending
```

I don't know why this error occurs. On WinXP all the CD and DVD medias i testet with gentoo work proper with the same DVD-drive on the same machine. So the failure must come from gentoo, not from hardware or the drive. 

I would test the situation, if all automount features are disabled. On which way could i disable these features ? Any ideas? 

best regards

GOS

----------

## Atha

Hello!

I have the same problem. Only, my DVD drive, an LG GSA-H55L (ATAPI), is on the local IDE bus (JMicron JMB363 chip, kernel driver pata_jmicron).

 *GOS wrote:*   

> I don't know why this error occurs. On WinXP all the CD and DVD medias i testet with gentoo work proper with the same DVD-drive on the same machine. So the failure must come from gentoo, not from hardware or the drive. 

 

Yes. Same here, in Windows XP all DVDs work just fine.

I think it once worked also in Gentoo Linux for me, but I cannot truely remember.

 *GOS wrote:*   

> I would test the situation, if all automount features are disabled. On which way could i disable these features ?

 

I don't know about this automount problem with Gnome as I use KDE.

If you want to test, simply go to a text console (press Ctrl-Alt-F1 or one of Ctrl-Alt-<F1-F6>) and stop your X server by typing /etc/init.d/xdm stop – but be sure you don't have any open files that you want to save first. Best is to log off your Gnome session first.

Now, you should not have any distirbing effects like automount or so. (You could additionally stop DBus and HAL: /etc/init.d/hald stop ; /etc/init.d/dbus stop.)

Put a CD/DVD into your drive and try to read it like this: dd if=/dev/sr0 of=/dev/null

See any error messages? Go to a different console (Alt-<F1-F6>) and check your kernel log: dmesg.

BTW, these are my errors messages:

```
sr 8:0:0:0: [sr0] Unhandled sense code

sr 8:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE

sr 8:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 

sr 8:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: Id CRC or ECC error

sr 8:0:0:0: [sr0] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 02 00

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 64

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 8
```

 *GOS wrote:*   

> Any ideas?

 

Maybe you should revert to an older kernel for the purpose of testing. 2.6.27, 2.6.28 and 2.6.32 are still available as sys-kernel/gentoo-sources.

I will do so too and check out if the drive was working with an older version of the kernel.

Also, you could try a different Linux distro, like the Knoppix LiveCD or Parted Magic (which, when run from system memory (a.k.a. RAM), also lets you check out another DVD from that drive).

Cheers,

A.

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## krinn

you can also try buildin aic7xxx.old driver instead of the newer (even the newer is better as the old one is frozen, good old code never killed anyone)

----------

## GOS

@ krinn

i tested this driver, but it supports only chipsets up to ultra2 scsi, so the U160 doesn't work with. 

@ Atha

It's interesting, that the failure occurs without scsi. But i down't know if this is good or not?!? The error message with dmesg is nearly the same as mine:

```
sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Unhandled sense code

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: Random positioning error

sr 0:0:4:0: [sr0] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 23 12 7e 00 00 02 00

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 9193976

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 1149247
```

Disable xdm,hal and dbus doesn't work. The old kernels doesn't work too. 

But with an old gentoo version (i made a stage 4 before two years) it works and with knoopix it works, but with sabayon (a gentoo live linux version) and the gentoo minimal cd it doesn't work. 

Thanks for answering

and best regards

GOS

----------

## Atha

I just wanted to report that I cannot help with this issue any longer, as soon after my posting I replaced the IDE ATAPI DVD drive with a SATA version. These are soo cheap nowerdays that I could not resist. It also made me finally get rid of this wide IDE cable, SATA cables are so much better to route through the tower case. Also the airflow for cooling propably better now.

Anyway, I then wanted to put it back for testing, but didn't have time. So: sorry.

I have no issues with the SATA drive. Also, the SATA drive is connected to the AMD chipset SB850 instead of the JMicron chip. This may also be a factor.

Hope you solved your problem since your last posting.

Cheers,

A.

----------

