[Sussex] Problem writing image to CD

[Brendan Whelan]

Hello,

I have created a backup shell script which exports a database, gathers files, creates a CD image file and then writes it to a CD.
The shell script is then scheduled to run during the night. There are a pair of, logically identical, systems one a Dell tower and the other a Dell rack mountable servers. (Fedora Core 3 is used on both systems.) The shell script works perfectly on the tower system but on the rack mounted machine the CD writing fails. The image to be copied is only about 360Mb, I have used different manufacturers CDs but the problem persists. I changed the CD drive but the problem persists.

I have taken an image copy of the offending system and placed it my test system with the same type of CD writer which is in the rack mountable system.
To simplify the problem I created a shell script which just contains the line which writes to the CD.  When I run the script in a terminal window it works. When I run it as a cron job it fails. The led on the CD writer flashes for a number of minutes and then goes on. The CD cannot be unmounted and the only way to extract the CD is to either power the system down and back up or to use a paper clip to release the CD drawer. (As an aside small image files can be written to the CD using a cron job.)

Any suggestions as to what might be causing the problem or how I could find out more information.

Thanks, Brendan 
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