Cannot open blank DVDs under 14.04

[Phil]

On 09/19/2014 06:07 PM, Colin Law wrote:
> On 19 September 2014 08:55, Phil <phil_lor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>> Thank you for reading this.
>>
>> I've spent most of the day trying to install Xubuntu on a friend's laptop
>> that is currently running a very sick version of Vista.
>>
>> I have two laptops; one runs Kubuntu 14.04 and the other Xubuntu 14.04 but
>> neither will detect blank DVDs. They both will open pre-recorded DVDs, so
>> the drives are not faulty. Both had version 13.04 installed previously and
>> did detect blank DVDs. So either I have missed something obvious or 14.04 is
>> the problem.
>>
>> My Kubuntu laptop has Vista installed as well and it will detect blank DVDs.
>> So I installed unetbootin under Windows, which was an exercise in
>> frustration in itself, but unetbootin does not see my USB DVD drive (the
>> internal drive is faulty).
>>
>> My friend wants to throw the laptop into the bin but I'd like to show that
>> Linux can save a little bit of landfill. So, can anyone suggest why both of
>> my DVD drives cannot see a blank disc but can see a pre-recorded disk? One
>> of the pre-recorded disks was recorded under 13.04 on the same USB disc
>> drive.
>
> What do you see added to the result of running, in a terminal
> dmesg
> when you plug in the USB disc and run dmesg again.
>

Thanks KW and Colin for your replies, much appreciated.

Dmesg shows the following:

[  178.279530] usb 2-3: USB disconnect, device number 3
[  347.084187] usb 2-3: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[  347.221066] usb 2-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0e8d, idProduct=1806
[  347.221077] usb 2-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, 
SerialNumber=3
[  347.221084] usb 2-3: Product: MT1806
[  347.221091] usb 2-3: Manufacturer: MediaTek Inc
[  347.221098] usb 2-3: SerialNumber: R8RZ6GAC600AYT
[  347.225267] usb-storage 2-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[  347.225543] scsi7 : usb-storage 2-3:1.0
[  348.234393] scsi 7:0:0:0: CD-ROM            ASUS     SDRW-08D2S-U 
  F301 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[  348.261948] sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 24x/24x writer dvd-ram cd/rw 
xa/form2 cdda tray
[  348.262239] sr 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1
[  348.263008] sr 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 5

Is there anything there that points to a problem?

As I said, I can read pre-recorded discs but not blank discs. Resting 
the mouse over the status bar USB icon shows "No device available".

-- 
Regards,
Phil