[ale] DVD media/hardware tests

[Dow Hurst]

I just posted this the ALE group in hopes of getting some 
advice.  I thought I'd go ahead post to the sysadmin list 
for the same reason. ;-)
Dow



Questions:
Is there any reason to believe that certain polling
processes like "autorun" on RH 9 can cause problems in
burning CD/DVD discs?

Has anyone run into media speed or composite coating
difference causing media read or seek errors between
different DVD drives?

Will polling processes in Gnome or KDE cause problems with
ripping, encoding, and playback of music?  Funky random
dropouts throughout playback or regular problems such a
blips or distortion that is repeatable on playback and seem
to have been part of the ripping encoding process?

What are the best quality most consistent DVD and CD media
on the market?  What would you bank your data on?

Explanation:

I've worked a little more on the problem I've had with
burning DVD discs reliably.  Thanks for the posts on which
device files correctly represent the hardware!  I am using 
/dev/scd0 and have checked the links on both DVD burners for 
/dev/dvd or /dev/cdrecorder depending on whether I am under 
SuSE 9 or RH9.  Now what I have found so far is that an 
initial set of 10 pack DVD-R 2x discs from "Hypermedia K" 
seem to have media errors, more with any drive other than 
the 2x LaCie firewire burner which does give some errors.  I 
only had X-CDRoast and dvdrecord for creating and burning 
the data under RH 9.  The errors look like this when reading 
from a DVD-ROM drive one of the Hypermedia K 2x disc:

Jan 13 15:13:04 knife kernel: SCSI cdrom error : host 0
channel 0 id 0 lun 0 return code = 8000002
Jan 13 15:13:04 knife kernel: Info fld=0x1bef37 (nonstd),
FMK Current sd0b:00: sense key Medium Error
Jan 13 15:13:04 knife kernel: Additional sense indicates
Unrecovered read error
Jan 13 15:13:04 knife kernel:  I/O error: dev 0b:00, sector
7322844

These repeat for each sector found as unreadable.


Here is an example from the LaCie 2x burner and not the
DVD-ROM on the same system:

Jan 13 15:44:46 knife kernel: SCSI cdrom error : host 0
channel 0 id 0 lun 0 return code = 8000002
Jan 13 15:44:46 knife kernel: Info fld=0x1bfb0f (nonstd),
FMK Current sd0b:00: sense key Hardware Error
Jan 13 15:44:46 knife kernel: Additional sense indicates
Track following error
Jan 13 15:44:46 knife kernel:  I/O error: dev 0b:00, sector
7334972
Jan 13 15:44:49 knife kernel: SCSI cdrom error : host 0
channel 0 id 0 lun 0 return code = 8000002
Jan 13 15:44:49 knife kernel: Info fld=0x1bfaf0 (nonstd),
FMK Current sd0b:00: sense key Medium Error
Jan 13 15:44:49 knife kernel: Additional sense indicates
Unrecovered read error
Jan 13 15:44:49 knife kernel:  I/O error: dev 0b:00, sector
7334848


Now the Memorex 50 pack DVD-R 4x discs don't have errors
that I can tell on certain drives.  These discs were
successfully burned and verified by K3B under SUSE 9 on the
LaCie 4x IDE burner on the initial write.  I can create a
tar file from the disc and verify the archive of the files
on the DVD using my Lite-On DVD-ROM under SuSE 9 at home.  I
can do the same on a Dell I-8500 laptop.  But, on my Dell RH
9 system, the DVD-ROM drive gives media errors on some files
on that same 4x DVD disc.  I haven't yet tried the 2x LaCie
firewire burner on the same RH 9 system.  I am trying to be
systematic here and make sure I've tried each drive
available on each media type.  Plus, I am trying discs with
the errors I've seen already and looking for repeats on
other drives and OS when attempting to read.

Since I've got a single 4x Verbatim disc that came with the
4x drive that has shown no problems on the SuSE systems:
laptop, home desktop, lab desktop w/4x burner, I am trying
it on the RH 9 DVD-ROM right now.

Thanks for any ideas and help on getting a reliable set of
burns on reliable media.  I need to be able to count on the
quality of the data on the discs.  TIA,
Dow


PS. Hardware setup:

Dell 360n P4 2.8GHz w/Hyperthreading enabled
LaCie 2x firewire external DVD-R/RW/RAM
Dell DVD-ROM
1Gb RAM
RH 9.0 running default RedHat KDE install (Gnomed KDE?)
2.4.20-24.9smp

Dell Optiplex GX1 PII 350MHz
LaCie 4x internal IDE DVD+/-R/RW
Dell CD-ROM
256Mb RAM
SuSE 9.0 running default KDE install
2.4.21-99-default

Dell I-8500 P4 2.0GHz
Dell DVD-ROM/CD-R/RW
1Gb RAM
SuSE 8.2 running default KDE install
EmperorLinux kernel 2.4.20-emp-2420p6a0328s

Homebuilt Athlon XP 1800 1.5GHz
LiteOn DVD-ROM
512Mb RAM
SuSE 9.0 running default KDE install
2.4.2x-athlon  (not sure if 20 or 21)


PPS.  Sorry for the long post!



-- 
__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744            *
1000 Chastain Rd. Bldg. 12                                 *
Chemistry Department SC428  Email:   dhurst at kennesaw.edu   *
Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com *
Kennesaw, GA 30144                                         *
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