Unmountable DVDs

[Basil Chupin]

On 31/10/13 15:13, Phil wrote:
> 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.

Which means that the disc is recognised  - and you can open it with 
Dolphin. And unless you open it with Dolphin  you won't be able to read 
its contents.

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

Now this is where I should have read your original post more closely.

You are talking about REWRITABLE discs, right?

Well once they are formatted k3b will not format them again - because 
there is no need to format them again. Any data on a rewritable disc 
will simply be overwritten.

Bottom line therefore is - you format a NEW clean RW disc once and 
that's it.

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

The reason for this I suspect is that Windows uses totally different 
mumbo-jumbo in almost all of the things it does.  I suspect that 
Windows, being the brain dead system that it is, doesn't recognise the 
disc and so reformats it as a new disc and Linux, of course, will see 
this disc because it recognises Windows formats.

> 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 some RW discs which I formatted with k3b. I checked them all a 
few minutes ago and all work fine so the problem is not with k3b.

> 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.

Taking into account what I said above, what happens when you place one 
of these "unmountable" discs in the drive and the menu comes up asking 
you if you want to open the disc using Dolphin and you do just that? If 
the disc is empty then you will see no contents. But what then happens 
if you try to copy a file to this disc?

BC

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