I have a Sony DW-U10A model DVD +/- R/RW drive, which IIRC is simply the OEM version of the Sony DRU-500A. Even if not, I have read reports that both the DRU-500A and the DW-U10A should work in Linux. I have firmware revision 1.1d.
I am running Linux 2.4.19-xfs on an AMD Athlon CPU and I have 512MB of RAM. There are 2 IDE hard drives on the first bus and the DVDRW is the only device on the secondary bus. I have 32bit mode and DMA both enabled for this drive. At first I tried using cdrecord-ProDVD, but it failed with the "CHECK STATUS" message. It failed with Sony brand DVD-Rs, and Memorex DVD-Rs and Memorex DVD+RWs. However it was able to write a few MB to the DVD-Rs (both brands) before exiting with this error: cdrecord-prodvd: Input/output error. write_g1: scsi sendcmd: no error CDB: 2A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1F 00 status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION) Sense Bytes: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 12 00 00 00 00 30 10 00 00 Sense Key: 0x5 Illegal Request, Segment 0 Sense Code: 0x30 Qual 0x10 (medium not formatted) Fru 0x0 Sense flags: Blk 0 (not valid) cmd finished after 0.005s timeout 100s write track data: error after 0 bytes cdrecord-prodvd: A write error occured. cdrecord-prodvd: Please properly read the error message above. cdrecord-prodvd: Input/output error. close track/session: scsi sendcmd: no error CDB: 5B 01 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION) and leaving me with ruined discs. This happened no matter what type of file I tried to burn, ISO9660 image or anything else. I tried several different times using both DAO and RAW. Only about 3 times did it even begin writing to the disc and then top. Every other time it gave me that error before it could even start (and left the disc untouched and still usable for later). I have decided now that I do not wish to use cdrecord-ProDVD because of the licensing issue. Sorry Jorg, please do not reply to this and tell me that all my problems would go away if I used ProDVD and that my firmware/hardware/ kernel is garbage. I have already made up my mind. I then tried using the hacked up "dvdrecord" "fork" in the dvdrtools package. It had exactly the same problems as cdrecord-ProDVD. I also tried simply using the patched-cdrecord that reportedly works with the DW-U10A. It had the same problems. It would detect the media, but give me a sense error before it could write, and if it did write, it would certainly not get very far before quitting. I should mention I have tried all of the above using ide-scsi (for cdrecord-hacked, dvdrecord, and cdrecord-ProDVD) and then using just regular ATAPI ("dev=ATAPI:0,0,0") on the ProDVD. This did not appear to change any results. I have had the most success with growisofs. I have successfully written 1 Memorex DVD-R with a 900MB ISO9660 image using growisofs. It did not have any problems at all and the disc is mountable and readable just fine. Two other times, growisofs has begun the burning, made it to about 30%, and then quit with what appeared to be the same type of sense error that cdrecord/ dvdrecord had. The two partial-but-unsuccessful burns were with a 900MB image, the other time the image was about 2.1GB. Those are the only three times growisofs has even begun to record. Every other time, it won't even start and complains about a sense error. As for DVD+RWs, growisofs has not yet successfully done a "preformat." dvd +rw-format has not either. growisofs begins, and goes for a few minutes before stopping with this error: :-[ LBA=0h, SENSE KEY=5h/ASC=30h/ASCQ=10h ] :-[ media is not formatted or unsupported ] :-( write failed: Invalid argument Using dvd+rw-format with this same type of disc, I get: * formatting |- [unable to CLOSE SESSION (5h/30h/10h)]: Invalid argument These same errors happen whether or not I'm using ide-scsi to access the drive. I will point out that the one time growisofs successfully burned, I was NOT using ide-scsi. But I do not know if this is relevant to the problem. This drive has no problems reading any of the good media I already have data recorded to, and it has no problems while using cdrecord for burning CDRs and CDRWs or blanking CDRWs. I have searched around and cannot find any other help, so I turn to you nice people and ask what do I do to make this drive reliably burn DVDs? I would like if at all possible to use the dvd+rw-tools package and growisofs. Any other information ask me and I will provide. Every time I've tried to burn, I have been root and stopped as many other processes as possible to let the CPU focus on the burning. For reasons of other patches, updating the kernel is not an option as this time. From what I read around here, this doesn't help many people anyway. Greg