Okay, this is it. As much as I am rooting for Fedora Core to be a stable
(enough) desktop environment, the inability to reliably read DVDs is a
deal breaker. I am making one last ditch effort to see if anyone can
help, but if not, I'm going to have to give up on Fedora.
I hope someone can help out here and at least give me a reason why my
DVD drives are not working, if not solve them, so that I can assess
whether or not I'm liable to encounter the same problem with another
distribution of Linux (which is why I haven't already switched).
This will be the most complete description of the problem, and if this
doesn't do it, then I have to call it quits.
1. The Set Up:
Fedora Core 4, complete yum update as of minutes before writing this
email, latest kernel.
Desktop PC, Pentium III, 600Mhz.
2. The Problem:
When I put any kind of DVD, whether it's data or video, into my DVD
drives, they work poorly or not at all. Data CDs and Audio CDs work
fine, and I can even *write* DVDs on my external DVD player and burn CDs
on my other drives.
It's only in reading DVDs that the problem arrises.
External USB DVD drive: Will usually show the DVD icon on the desktop,
but copying data is extremely slow and will almost always fail. I have
succeeded maybe once or twice in copying data from a DVD when the amount
of data is less than 100 MB. But not reliably, and not in any pattern
that I can reproduce.
Internal DVD 1: Putting a DVD in this drive causes the light to flash as
if it is reading, but no icon comes up and it does not become
accessible. Ejection is impossible unless I reboot and press the front
eject button during the power on sequence, or if I force an ejection by
inserting a pin into the manual eject hole on the front of the drive.
This DVD drive is on the sequence of boot devices (between floppy disk
and before hard drive), so if there is a DVD present in the time of
booting, it will delay the boot process by five to ten minutes and
eventually show an error before booting.
Internal DVD 2: Will spend about a minute reading the DVD before an icon
shows up on the desktop. Copying takes a long time (at least twice the
time it takes to copy the same number of files under Windows XP), but it
will actually complete. However, while it is copying files, it seems to
slow the whole system down, to the point where mouse movement and typing
is delayed.
In Xine, when attempting to play a DVD, or an audio CD from my DVD
drive, I get the following error:
There is no plugin available to handle 'dvd:/'. Maybe MRC syntax is
wrong or file/stream dource does not exist.
I hope someone will be able to figure out what the issue is and help me
get this resolved.
Dave
Additional info:
Here is what is in the auto.misc file:
cd -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev :/dev/cdrom
Here is the result of ls -l /dev/dvd:
[root@localhost dev]# ls -l /dev/dvd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Jul 14 2005 /dev/dvd -> hdb
Here are the results of hdparm:
[root@localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvd
/dev/dvd:
Model=RICOH DVD/CDRW MP9060, FwRev=1.50, SerialNo=
Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
AdvancedPM=no
* signifies the current active mode
[root@localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvd1
/dev/dvd1:
Model=SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-608, FwRev=bp22, SerialNo=
Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
(maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
AdvancedPM=no
* signifies the current active mode
[root@localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvd2
/dev/dvd2:
HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Invalid argument
[root@localhost dev]# hdparm -i /dev/dvdwriter
/dev/dvdwriter:
HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Invalid argument
