HOW-TO: Packet Writing without tears

[trents]

Okay, been trying to follow your directions to get packet writing going. I have two devices capable of packet writing: a cd burner and a cddvd burner. I edited udftools and added the line: DEVICES="/dev/hdd /dev/sr0" so that the relevant section looks like this:

# Drives to register for packet writing:
#DEVICES="/dev/hdd /dev/sr0"
DEVICES="/dev/hdd /dev/sr0"

Then I issued the command in terminal: sudo /etc/init.d/udftools start

But, I got this message:
Starting udftools packet writing:
/dev/pktcdvd/0=/dev/hdd Device node '0' already in use
/dev/pktcdvd/1=/dev/sr0 open cd-rom: No such file or directory

What did I do wrong?

Steve

[Cariboo1938]

# Drives to register for packet writing:
#DEVICES="/dev/hdd /dev/sr0"
DEVICES="/dev/hdd /dev/sr0"
Steve

Are you sure you choose the right device names?
Did you check /etc/fstab?
What are the names for the drives there?
Mine look like this:

/dev/hda /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 rw,user,noauto 0 0 (This is my CD-R/W)
/dev/hdb /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 rw,user,noauto 0 0 This is my CDVD-R/W)

[Cariboo1938]

It works! Yes, 'Packet Writing' works on my system!

But...It's not working for DVD-RW's because I found no way to format them. cdrwtool doesn't work.
For CD-RW's it works partially.... there is still an issue with mounting...
So, actually it is not what I was used to in "Nero, InCD"

[Cariboo1938]

Packet Writing Without Tears: How to use Rewritable Optical Media in Ubuntu
Pedro A. López-Valencia
python -c 'print "cGFsb3BlenZAZ21haWwuY29t".decode("base64")'

Formatting your CD-RW
Before you start formatting your CD, make sure that you have DMA active in your burner...
In order to activate permanently DMA, you must edit your /etc/hdparm.conf

My /etc/hdparm.conf entries are as follows:

#Activating DMA permanently for Packet Writing
/dev/hda {
dma = on
io32_support = 1
}
/dev/hdb {
dma = on
io32_support = 1
}

Take a CD-RW or DVD-/+RW and format it:

sudo cdrwtool -t 4 -d /dev/hdd -q

Go brew a carafe of cofee and grab some muffins. Drink slowly...

Error message when I try to format the DVD:

root@BitByter:~# sudo cdrwtool -t 4 -d /dev/hdb -q
setting speed to 4
using device /dev/hdb
1088KB internal buffer
setting write speed to 4x
Settings for /dev/hdb:
Fixed packets, size 32
Mode-2 disc

I'm going to do a quick setup of /dev/hdb. The disc is going to be blanked and formatted with one big track. All data on the device will be lost!! Press CTRL-C to cancel now.
ENTER to continue.

Initiating quick disc blank
Disc capacity is 3524075584 blocks (2753183872KB/6882960MB)
Formatting track
wait_cmd: Input/output error
Command failed: 04 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - sense 00.24.00
format disc: Illegal seek
root@BitByter:~#

My DVD drive is a LG GSA-4160B which, the Device Manager tells me, is found as HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4160B.
Is this a hardware problem or do I have to use a different command to format the DVD?

[sawjew]

cariboo, I have been using dvd-ram for quite a while now with no problems. If you are using a dvd-ram drive, as it appears you are, you shouldn't need to do any of this it should just work. If you buy a preformatted dvd-ram disk you should be able to just use it in your dvd-ram drive and save to it, drag and drop and everything just like using a hard drive.

To format a dvd-ram disk just use the standard hard drive formatting tools. I use fat32 for my dvd-ram now as it's readable anywhere but I last formatted it in Windows. To format with udf just open a terminal and enter

mkudffs --utf8 --media-type=dvdram /dev/<your device name>

This should get you working with udf.

Otherwise you can use use mke2fs for ext2 or anything else you would like to use.

NOTE: you will need udftools installed to use mkudffs but it is installed by default in Edgy and I think in Dapper too.

[Cariboo1938]

....
To format with udf just open a terminal and enter

mkudffs --utf8 --media-type=dvdram /dev/<your device name>

This should get you working with udf.

Thanks sajew, for offering help! I just came home and found your response. I want to use disks from TDK "DVD-RW recordable 4x 4.7GB". would these be dvd-ram types you talk about? Another quick question: the term "--media-type=dvdram" in the above code is valid in general or do I have to enter something specific to my installation?

[sawjew]

Thanks sajew, for offering help! I just came home and found your response. I want to use disks from TDK "DVD-RW recordable 4x 4.7GB". would these be dvd-ram types you talk about? Another quick question: the term "--media-type=dvdram" in the above code is valid in general or do I have to enter something specific to my installation?

No dvd-ram disks are a specific type of disk not a dvd-rw, they usually come pre-formatted with udf although sometimes you can get them with fat32 (or so I have been told, I have never seen them). I don't know if you can do packet writing on a dvd-rw but if you have a dvd-ram drive then using dvd-ram disks is much simpler. Be warned that dvd-ram disks are quite expensive (about AU$15) but they can be reused and re-formatted a lot more times than a standard dvd-rw.

As far as the "--media-type=dvdram" goes that is telling it that you are formatting a dvd-ram disk, you would put "--media-type=cdrw" if you were formatting a cd-rw disk. If you want the full information about mkudffs just open Yelp (Help) and in the search box type

man mkudffs

You may be able to format a dvd-rw as udf and use it with packet writing as in this how-to but dvd-ram is much easier. I think the difference is that packet writing is done by software whereas dvd-ram writing uses the firmware in the drive and therefore requires no extra configuration to use it.

Hope this helps

[Cariboo1938]

No dvd-ram disks are a specific type of disk not a dvd-rw, they usually come pre-formatted with udf although sometimes you can get them with fat32 (or so I have been told, I have never seen them).
You may be able to format a dvd-rw as udf and use it with packet writing as in this how-to but dvd-ram is much easier. I think the difference is that packet writing is done by software whereas dvd-ram writing uses the firmware in the drive and therefore requires no extra configuration to use it.
Hope this helps

Very interesting, sajew, thank you for the info...
I didn't know about DVD-ram disks...so would I need to have a special drive too?
I try, since I have started to use Linux systems, to get packet writing working as it works in Windows with Nero's InCD. I have no clue why it is is such a problem to have this feature in Linux systems. Do you have an answer for that? PS.: I'm not a programmer or developer, I only use my computer for all these trivial like Text, Music, Picture, e-mail, Internet and it is very convenient to save your daily stuff just by using a re-writable disk and add /delete a folder without burning the whole CD again and again as K3b, GenomeBaker,....all do.

[sawjew]

Very interesting, sajew, thank you for the info...
I didn't know about DVD-ram disks...so would I need to have a special drive too?
I try, since I have started to use Linux systems, to get packet writing working as it works in Windows with Nero's InCD. I have no clue why it is is such a problem to have this feature in Linux systems. Do you have an answer for that? PS.: I'm not a programmer or developer, I only use my computer for all these trivial like Text, Music, Picture, e-mail, Internet and it is very convenient to save your daily stuff just by using a re-writable disk and add /delete a folder without burning the whole CD again and again as K3b, GenomeBaker,....all do.

You do need to have a special drive but I only made this comment to you because in your initial post you mentioned that your drive was identified as a

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4160B

which appears to be a dvd-ram drive. If this is the case you should be able to use a dvd-ram disk and be happily packet writing in no time.

I am no programmer either, I use the computer for everyday tasks and some engineering modelling tasks. I gave up on packet writing a while ago with a normal cd-rw drive because it was too complicated and that was what drew me to this post to see if it had become easier. I had it working at one stage, but it took quite a while to set up and I have since upgraded the system, but I have found the dvd-ram to be flawless.

The easiest thing to do if you can't get packet writing working properly and don't have a dvd-ram drive, is just to get a large (2G or more) flash drive and use that or an external hard drive.

That said, your initial request was about formatting the drive and mkudffs should sort that one out. I have never had any success formatting a disc in udf format with cdrwtools but have had no problems with mkudffs.

Addition: I used to use Direct Cd for Windows and I found that a disc formatted with Direct Cd would work in Linux perfectly but one formatted using mkudffs would not work in Windows. I read somewhere that this is because Windows packet writing uses the older udf 1.5 format whereas Linux uses the newer udf 2.0 format. Just a little extra info.

[bitzbox]

To format a dvd-ram disk just use the standard hard drive formatting tools. I use fat32 for my dvd-ram now as it's readable anywhere but I last formatted it in Windows.

I've been trying without success to format a DVD-RAM disk with the FAT32 filesystem. I'm a bit new to Linux so I'm probably doing something wrong but I've been using mkdosfs to do the formatting and it appears to work but Dapper won't mount the newly formatted DVD-RAM disk. It complains about an unknown filesystem - any ideas please?