Re: cdrecord hangs system when accessing SCSI device

From: Craig Bergren (cbergren_at_tvbox.bergren.us)
Date: 12/16/04 

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:39:02 GMT

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:16:04 +0000, Haines Brown wrote:

> Craig, your recommendations for tests may have pointed me to the source of
> my difficulty.
>
> I find that I can access the drive without difficult, in that the -load
> and -eject options for cdrecord work OK.
>
> The cdrecord -ati option that indicates whether the media is accessed did
> not work at first. After the usual feedback from the driver, I'm just
> kicked back to the command prompt without any ATIP info.
>
> The cdrecord man suggests most drives won't provide that info, but I
> thought I'd try an already blank CD-RW disk just to be sure, rather than
> one of the AOL disks that everyone gets in the mail I was using for
> testing. When I tried it with a blank cd recordable disk ("For high-speed
> 4X-10X drive only"), I get do the ATIP info returned from the medium.

If you read a little bit more closely, atip data is only for recordable
media. If you have read only media, you won't have atip data. Those AOL
disks are not writable.

>
> So I try to run the blank=all on the blank disk, and this time it seems to
> work (I'm not kicked back to prompt and the drive is flashing a red LED
> continuously, so I presume I'm erasing).
>
> I suspect that my original problem blanking was simply due to my
> attempting it on a commercial recorded disk that either did not allow
> blanking or I ran into speed incompatibility. You would help me greatly by
> answering these newbie questions:
>
> 1. Why can't one save up all the AOL disks that come in the mail,
> erase them and use them to do recording?

I always thought the AOL disks were read only, like a commercial music CD.
They might also be CD-R or CD+R, writable, but they've already been
written, so for you they are just the same as if they were read only.

> 2. My Yamaha drive is 20X Write/10X Re-Write/40X Read, but the Sony
> CD-RW disk I'm using (apparently successfully now - the red LED is
> still flashing) says "For high-speed 4X-10X drive only." Which Yamaha
> speed are they referring to, its Write or the Re-Write speed?

The Yamaha drive supports writing for two media types CD-R and CD-RW.
There are also other media types CD+R, CD+RW and CD-ROM. You need to be
careful when you buy media that you are getting the (-) type and not the
(+) type. + media won't work in the drive.

20x Write - refers to writing CD-R (recordable) disks.

10x re-write - refers to writing CD-RW (re-write) disks.

40x read - for reading all disks including AOL disks and commercially
               recorded disks from Sony.

The Sony CD-RW disks are, well -RW disks, so they are referring to the
re-write speed. Heres the specs for media from the Yamaha 2200S owner's
manual:

Writing(CD-R): 1x,2x,4x, 8x,12x(CLV),
                16x (12x-16x partial CAV)
                20x (12x-20x Partial CAV)

Writing(CD-RW): 2x, 4x, 8x, 10x (CLV)
                4x-10x Full CAV

>
> 3. The CD disk says for 4X to 10X, which is slower than my drive. Does
> that mean I must slow down the burning speed to accommodate the CD
> disk?

If we're still talking about the Yamaha 2200S, you don't have to slow down
your drive. It is only capable of writing at 10X on CD-RW media. If you
get some 20x CD-R media, you may write faster, but you can't erase the
disk after you've written it once (blanking won't work, like with AOL disk).

>
> 4. Are there faster CD disks, such as would accept a 20X write speed,
> and does the brand make much difference?

Some brands are better than others and/or work better with one drive than
another. If you get errors burning at full speed, try a slower speed,
otherwise let it rip at the maximum.

>
> Oops, after 5 min, the red flashing LED just turned steady green (normal
> state). I've been kicked back to the command prompt with no message that
> the blank operation failed.
>
> 5. Is this 5 minutes a reasonable time for blanking a (already blank)
> disk?

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