[xubuntu-users] DVD iso burning 8X?

[James Freer]

On Mon, 1 Sep 2014, Steve Litt wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Sep 2014 23:52:50 +0100 (BST)
> James Freer <jessejazza3.uk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Since I bought a new PC a couple of years ago I haven't been able to
>> burn isos and get the correct md5sum. Using both Brasero and k3b the
>> min speed this drive can do is 8X. Every time I burn an iso it fails
>> the md5sum. I tried DVD-RW 4X discs and that worked - but when I
>> blank the disk and try to burn another it fails. It seems I have a
>> poor DVD drive - are these modern SATA drives only capable of 8X. It
>> plays DVD videos fine and seems to be ok otherwise.
>>
>> I understood that the bigger the iso the more likely a burn is to
>> fail. How reliable is burning a DVD?
>>
>> My old PC only had a CD writer/DVD reader drive bought in 2005 - it's
>> been faultless burning CD isos and I have only ever used 4X (it's
>> minimum speed). Maybe it's old but never failed to produce a copy.
>>
>> This newer PC DVD drive it would seem is poor at 'writing'. I'd be
>> grateful if someone could let me know if they've had problems burning
>> DVDs at 8X - were CD writers more reliable? I have always burnt an
>> iso for each release install as I don't like USB sticks... perhaps
>> that's what most folk use now.
>
> It might not be your DVD drive or media at all. It might be an
> instrumentation problem: Namely, that your method of getting an md5sum
> off the DVD conflicts with the Linux "readahead bug".
>
> See this article:
>
> http://troubleshooters.com/linux/coasterless.htm
>
> It was written 12 years ago, but is still valid. Try the "rawread"
> script like this:
>
> ./rawread /dev/dvd | md5sum
>
> If nothing else works, here's how I burn a DVD:
>
> wodim dev=/dev/sg(whatever) driveropts=burnfree padsize=63s \
> -dao -pad -v -eject /path/to/myfile.iso
>
> The 63s really does help on edge cases.
>
> HTH,
> SteveT

Wodim - I have just installed it as I've read many folk use it. So I'll try it 
this evening. I've just used Brasero and K3b so far as they've both worked 
without trouble.

Thanks
james