Should USB DVD drives work?

[movieman]

So in the last few days I've been trying to watch movies on my netbook using my USB DVD drive in Ubuntu. Plug it in and about half the time the OS actually recognises it, the other half I have to disconnect it and try again, or even reboot. Start playing the movie and sometimes it's OK, other times I get part-way through and the DVD drive vanishes from the system. Finish with one movie, eject the disk, insert another DVD and the DVD drive has disappeared from the system; ejecting the disk seems to be at least 90% reliable at removing the drive from the system even though I haven't touched the USB cables at all.

Is a plain old dumb DVD drive too sophisticated a peripheral for Ubuntu to handle, or does anyone know of something I can do to make it more reliable? I haven't used this drive in Windows much, but I've never had a problem with it there so I presume the hardware is OK.

[nathansoz]

Do you have any problems with the drive if you boot Ubuntu with the drive plugged in?

[movieman]

Do you have any problems with the drive if you boot Ubuntu with the drive plugged in?

Yeah, I've tried it both ways and that's no more reliable. It's the drive I used to install Ubuntu, and I've booted Moblin and Solaris CDs, so the BIOS seems happy with it.

[nathansoz]

Yeah, I've tried it both ways and that's no more reliable. It's the drive I used to install Ubuntu, and I've booted Moblin and Solaris CDs, so the BIOS seems happy with it.

Hmmmm, do you have another USB dvd drive you can try testing? I am just taking a wild swing, but perhaps its just an isolated issue with this drive.