Unmountable DVDs

Phil phil_lor at bigpond.com
Thu Oct 31 04:13:25 UTC 2013


On 10/31/2013 01:08 PM, Basil Chupin wrote:
> On 31/10/13 00:48, Phil wrote:
>> Thank you for reading this.
>>
>> I had encouraged an acquaintance to install Kubuntu and somehow he
>> managed to wipe Windows Vista during the process. Not a major disaster
>> so far but still it's an annoyance all round. The current problem for
>> me is that I have to provide a solution for several rewritable DVDs
>> that are now unmountable.
>>
>> A batch of DVDs were formatted using K3B so that they could be reused.
>> Unfortunately, they are now unmountable. I know this to be the case
>> from my own past experience with K3B, no mater if "format" or "quick
>> format" is selected the result is the same, a disc that is unmountable.
>>
>> While delving into another laptop I've discovered that Windows 7 is
>> able to mount the previously unmountable discs and format all but one
>> of them as UDF discs.
>>
>> Apparently buying a copy of Windows 7 or 8 is not an option. So is
>> there an easy GUI for formatting or erasing discs that won't leave
>> them unmountable? I've looked at "udftools" but it's use is rather
>> complex.
>>
>
> What do you really mean by "unmountable"?
>
> Do you mean that once they are mounted they cannot be unmounted (ie,
> cannot use 'umount /dev/sdX)? Or do you mean that you cannot MOUNT the
> discs?
>
> And if it is the latter case (cannot mount them), what setting do you
> have in System Settings>Removable Devices? (And if you start Dolphin
> does the DVD disc show up in the left-hand window?)
>

Thanks for replying Basil.

By "unmountable" I mean that the discs are not visible to the system.

If a DVD is placed into it's drive then the various options are 
displayed, such as open with Dolphin.

After the disc is formatted with K3b then nothing happens, apart from 
the disc spinning for a few moments.

The same "unmountable" disk, once reformatted under Windows, is 
accessible under Linux and can be written to under K3b.

Automatic mounting of all removable devices is enabled under Kubuntu.

K3b, has over the years, produced several formatted discs that are not 
mountable under Linux or Windows.

I have Xubuntu on another laptop and the faulty discs will not mount on 
that system either so it's not a mechanical problem or a problem 
peculiar to KDE.

I'm attempting to help two people. One is trying to delete the contents 
of his DVD collection so that they can be reused in his laptop. The 
other person records late night TV shows and would like to use his 
computer to erase the contents of the DVD ready for another recording 
session. The TV viewer has Windows so I can probably sort him out.

-- 
Regards,
Phil




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