Cannot open blank DVDs under 14.04

[Doug]

On 09/19/2014 07:39 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Fri, 19 Sep 2014 17:55:40 +1000 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.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.
>
> What do you mean by 'detect blank DVDs'? It is not that you can actually do
> anything with a blank DVD (but that might depend on the sort of DVD: I *think*
> DVD-RW disks can be formatted, but since I have never used re-writable I don't
> know for sure). Under CentOS (5 and 6), 'blank' DVD-Rs and CD-Rs are not
> 'detected' either. Instead one goes ahead and uses's cdrecord or the like to
> burn an ISO image.  If the disk already has an image on it, cdrecord or the
> like fails.  Note: *I* don't use any sort of GUI to deal with burning CDs or
> DVDs.  (I have used wodim under Debian 7 to burn DVDs.)

Here I'm running PCLOS-KDE, and using K3b to burn cds and dvds. This
program certainly detects whether there is a burnable disk in the drive.
I also use LightScribe, and that program also knows if there is a
LightScribe disk in the drive.
So unless LightScribe-capable drives are otherwise unique, then the
system certainly knows it there is a disk in the drive, and what
kind it is.
I don't know why Kubuntu wouldn't be able to do this also. (Do you
have K3b? I would think it would be available to Kubuntu, and it's
a pretty smart disk burner.)

--doug