Cannot open blank DVDs under 14.04

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 19 September 2014 03:55:40 Phil did opine
And Gene did reply:
> 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.

It would help if you named the program that can't see the blanks.  I use 
K3B here, with all its dependencies installed, and historically, when I 
have that sort of problems, its always been because the drive was failing.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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