Cannot open blank DVDs under 14.04 - solved

[Peter Smout]

On 20/09/14 08:53, Colin Law wrote:
> On 20 September 2014 01:22, Phil <phil_lor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>> On 09/20/2014 07:13 AM, Colin Law wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> If you open brasero or whatever is the DVD writer on your system does
>>> it see the disc?  In other words is it just the automatic detection
>>> that is not working or does it not see it at all?
>>>
>>
>> Thank you everyone for your replies.
>>
>> The DVD drive in my Xububtu laptop has finally failed, it was always dodgy,
>> and the external USB drive is not detected by KB3
This is strange, I've never had any issues with K3b as long as I 
remember to install the extra codecs for mp3's ;)

, in fact the system does
>> not detect a blank DVD at all, in my Kubuntu laptop. However, blank DVDs are
>> detected in the USB drive using Xfburn and Thunar under Xubuntu. From there
>> it was a simple matter to burn the iso file to the DVD.
>>
>> After a bit of fiddling around I was able to get my friend's laptop to boot
>> from the DVD and now we have Xubuntu installed and one less item in
>> landfill. I think my friend's son, who is a virus magnet, is going to be
>> disappointed but at least the operating system will be safe.
>
> As a matter of interest, on the working system do you see anything
> different in dmesg after plugging in the drive?  Specifically the line
> showing the capabilities of the device.
>
> Colin
>