Testing blank CDs

[BobvanderPoel]

Had a frustrating session yesterday: Tried to burn an audio CD.

Should not be a big problem! But, I really did start to curse Ubuntu, computers and CDs in general.

I put my blank CD in the drive, started up K3B and expected to burn a few audio tracks. But, K3B would not find the blank CD. I think this is the 1st time since ugrading to 11.04 I'd tried to burn a CD ... so I tried Brasero as well ... nothing ... hmmm, maybe from the command line using cdrecord? Nope. Nothing.

So, my next thought was the CD ... so, grabbed the next one off the stack. No difference.

Next, I booted into 10.04 and magically it all worked. Went on to burn a 2nd ... and the same problem.

To make a long story short, there was nothing wrong with computer, ubuntu or the drives. But, I did have 3 bad CDs in a row on the stack of generic CDs.

So here is the question: is there a utility which can check a blank CD to see if it is burnable? Not that I'd probably remember to try it the next time, but at least it'd be completely my fault then.

[AlphaLexman]

I have noticed that some brands of burners simply won't recognize some brands of discs, especially the generics. Try a name brand of disc.