[sclug] Fwd: Help! CD drive not being seen - more info

Sun Nov 25 10:43:13 UTC 2012

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Neil Haughton <haughtonomous at googlemail.com>
Date: 25 November 2012 09:36
Subject: Re: [sclug] Help! CD drive not being seen - more info
To: ed <ed at s5h.net>

Ed,

On 24 November 2012 10:44, ed <ed at s5h.net> wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 10:30:38AM +0000, Neil Haughton wrote:
> > Postscript: lshw also shows the following:
> >
> >            *-cdrom
> >                 description: DVD reader
> >                 product: DVD-ROM SD-616F
> >                 vendor: SAMSUNG
> >                 physical id: 1
> >                 bus info: scsi at 1:0.0.0
> >                 logical name: /dev/cdrom
> >                 logical name: /dev/dvd
> >                 logical name: /dev/scd0
> >                 logical name: /dev/sr0
> >                 version: F100
> >                 capabilities: removable audio dvd
> >                 configuration: ansiversion=5 status=nodisc
> >
> > I see the status is 'nodisk', even though I have inserted an audio CD.
> > Could this mean that the drive itself is the problem?
>
> From memory, audio disks are not mountable. The tracklisting you see in
> Windows is not displaying files to you but tracks, so don't expect to be
> able to mount it[1]. From memory I used to use cdparanoia to extract the
> tracks to flac (a lossless format), then cat them into mpg123 or
> something of that ilk.
>
> From the cdparanoia man page:
>
>   cdparanoia -vsQ
>
> should show you whats on the various devices.
>
> [1] I could be wrong...
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Ed http://www.s5h.net/
>

Thanks for your reply. This is the result:

neil at debian:~$ cdparanoia -vsQ
cdparanoia III release 10.2 (September 11, 2008)

Using cdda library version: 10.2
Using paranoia library version: 10.2
Checking /dev/cdrom for cdrom...
Testing /dev/cdrom for SCSI/MMC interface
 SG_IO device: /dev/sr0

CDROM model sensed sensed: SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-616F F100

Checking for SCSI emulation...
 Drive is ATAPI (using SG_IO host adaptor emulation)

Checking for MMC style command set...
Drive is MMC style
004: Unable to read table of contents header

Unable to open disc.  Is there an audio CD in the drive?

The answer is 'yes'. I've tried with several audio CDs. When I put it in,
the device light blinks for a while then stops. The contents of the CD
remain inaccessible.

This suggests to me that the drive is terminal, but I have no way to test
that short of buying a new one which I am reluctant to do until I am sure
it isn't something upstream (eg the OS misbehaving or misconfigured).

I've checked that the master/slave/c-s drive jumper on the back is set up
as Master, and the device is connected to the end plug of the ribbon cable
(although changing to the alternative plug makes no difference).

Can you suggest what I might try next?

Neil

It gets more puzzling! I have now connected up a spare HP CD-Writer as the
master with the DVD reader as slave. Dmesg shows both devices being
recognised on boot up. In fact if I slip an audio CD into the HP drive it
pops up on the desktop as an 'audio CD' icon. Similarly if I pop a data DVD
into the DVD drive I can open it in file manager and see the contents.

 From this I deduce that the hardware is working. Cdparanoia -vsQ now gives
the following output:

neil at debian:~$ cdparanoia -vsQ
cdparanoia III release 10.2 (September 11, 2008)

Using cdda library version: 10.2
Using paranoia library version: 10.2
Checking /dev/cdrom for cdrom...
Testing /dev/cdrom for SCSI/MMC interface
 SG_IO device: /dev/sr0

CDROM model sensed sensed: HP CD-Writer+ 8100 1.0g

Checking for SCSI emulation...
 Drive is ATAPI (using SG_IO host adaptor emulation)

Checking for MMC style command set...
Drive is MMC style
 DMA scatter/gather table entries: 1
table entry size: 131072 bytes
maximum theoretical transfer: 55 sectors
 Setting default read size to 27 sectors (63504 bytes).

Verifying CDDA command set...
Expected command set reads OK.

Attempting to set cdrom to full speed...
drive returned OK.

Table of contents (audio tracks only):
track        length               begin        copy pre ch
===========================================================
  1.     4702 [01:02.52]       33 [00:00.33]    no   no  2
  2.    16783 [03:43.58]     4735 [01:03.10]    no   no  2
  3.     8990 [01:59.65]    21518 [04:46.68]    no   no  2
  4.    10915 [02:25.40]    30508 [06:46.58]    no   no  2
  5.    13550 [03:00.50]    41423 [09:12.23]    no   no  2
  6.    21035 [04:40.35]    54973 [12:12.73]    no   no  2
  7.     7455 [01:39.30]    76008 [16:53.33]    no   no  2
  8.    11115 [02:28.15]    83463 [18:32.63]    no   no  2
  9.    17250 [03:50.00]    94578 [21:01.03]    no   no  2
 10.    14530 [03:13.55]   111828 [24:51.03]    no   no  2
 11.    22582 [05:01.07]   126358 [28:04.58]    no   no  2
 12.    11600 [02:34.50]   148940 [33:05.65]    no   no  2
 13.    16023 [03:33.48]   160540 [35:40.40]    no   no  2
 14.    10312 [02:17.37]   176563 [39:14.13]    no   no  2
TOTAL  186842 [41:31.17]    (audio only)

which is to be expected, although now it is not seeing the DVD reader!.
Also if I put an audio CD into the DVD reader, I get the previous result.
Clearly one problem was that the DVD reader doesn't like audio CDs. Ok, so
far so good.

Then I tried Gnome sound-juicer again, but it still wouldn't see the CD
drive and refused to work with the DVD reader. So I completely removed it
and instead installed Asunder (an alternative CD-ripper from the Debian
repositories). Oila! that seems to be working, and comes with the codecs I
need (Ogg, flac etc).

So although I haven't solved the original problem, I have at least
circumvented it. So thanks for your help.

Neil.