[SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

pseudonomous · 2011-02-17 07:30:49

Hello Everyone,

It has been quite some time since I've burnt a cdrom, but I have done it succesfully in the past. I've been trying to do this again recently, but the speeds I get with wodim are extremely slow, 0.06x would probably be my average speed. I started out trying to burn with k3b, then gave up and futzed around with wodim and xfburn (which uses libburn instead of cdrkit or cdrtools).

Running xfburn for about 5 minutes or so, results in my cdburner making some rather nasty noises, a very fast spin, followed by grinding noises. Not normal operating noises.

from dmesg:

ide-cd driver 5.00
ide-cd: hdc: ATAPI 48X DVD-ROM DVD-R/RAM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache
cdrom: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

Not very helpful, I know. from hdparm

/dev/cdrom0:
 HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Bad address
 IO_support    =  0 (default) 
 unmaskirq     =  0 (off)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 HDIO_GETGEO failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

I've tried turning dma off, as well as specifically setting udma4 (both with hdparm), which is what my bios auto detects for the drive. I guess it's possible that the drive has simply gone bad. but it still reads cds okay. I don't have any alternate OS installed to test and see if the problem is Arch specific, but I might be able to find something to use.; Anybody have any suggestions for what the culprit might be, or things to try and debug what's going on here?

edit:

The problem seems to be in-correctly loading ide kernel modules for interfacing with the cd/dvd driver, probably these are modules that were deprecated by the libata transition. blacklisting "ide_core" seems to work for me.

Last edited by pseudonomous (2011-03-03 19:03:09)

TigTex · 2011-02-17 20:18:22

Maybe you have to open your burner case and clean the laser lens or search for a firmware update, usualy windows binaries.
Try to run your cdrom in master mode alone in a IDE cable and also try another cable...
that's all I can think of right now. Usually dvd/cd burners are udma2

lagagnon · 2011-02-17 20:53:06

You could try burning from a Live Linux Cd but if you get grinding noises it does sound to me like a hardware fault, not software.

R00KIE · 2011-02-18 08:53:13

lagagnon wrote:

You could try burning from a Live Linux Cd but if you get grinding noises it does sound to me like a hardware fault, not software.

Although not very common, if the drive is having problems reading or writing to the media then that can happen, this of course also depends on the software you are using because it may ask the drive to do stuff it can't (I guess most drives don't do much in regards to command sanity check, which is both good and bad).

I would also try with a live cd/usb and see if the problem still happens, also try with some quality media if you are using unbranded/cheap CDs or try with some media that you have used successfully before.

pseudonomous · 2011-02-26 04:45:12

I realize that I'm debugging this at a snail's pace, because I've been busy with other things, but I've determined, that there's nothing seriously wrong with the CDROM drive itself. I traded drives w/ another machine running OpenBSD and that machine burns disks just fine and the disk drive from the BSD box doesn't do any better at burning disks in the Arch machine.

I'm pretty sure the UDMA settings were wrong in the BIOS on my Arch Box, because the BSD box auto-detects the drive at udma 2 (though I guess it's possible that the IDE controller on that machine isn't capable of better than udma 2, and that's why it's set different). Anyways, setting UDMA2 in the bios and with hdparm still doesn't fix my issue on the Arch box. As I've previously mentioned, trying to disable DMA and use PIO only doesn't improve things either.

At least using wodim, I don't seem to have the issue with the drive overspinning and making grinding noises and it does write data at about 4KB/s. I haven't let it run through a disk yet, so I'm not sure if the disk it burns will be readable. I think I'll try and let it run through a disk and see if it's actually readable. I might also try a DVD, and see if that's any different.

Edit: I've also checked that I can burn when I boot from a gParted 3.5 liveCD, at least using the burner from the BSD box, not so sure the burns are OK, I seem to be getting input/output errors from the disks.

Edit 2:I get I/O errors when I try to checksum CDs on either computer, I got a commercial audio CD to checksum, but nothing else is working, including a RHEL .iso that passed the "OK" to install test, so somethings wrong and I'm not quite sure what

Edit 3: see http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=213219#213219 for the answer to Edit 2.

Last edited by pseudonomous (2011-02-26 06:47:29)

R00KIE · 2011-03-01 20:19:35

Try comparing which modules get loaded by arch and which ones get loaded by the gparted (or other) live cd.

Try leaving the drive alone as master and see if it works, if not try it alone as slave. If you happen to plug/unplug the cable often then it might be a bad cable, also check that all ends are properly connected (cable might have gotten loose over time).

Also forget about pio mode, it will be very slow. In the bios leave the mode detection in auto and check that the drive is properly detected during post.

No more ideas here now.

pseudonomous · 2011-03-02 00:47:10

Thanks for the ideas, I've been playing around, tried booting some old kernels (kernel-lts and 2.26.36) and could burn CDs fine with those old kernels loaded. There's a huge difference between the modules loaded under those different kernels ... of course I can't even be sure that it's the lack of kernel module that's causing me grief, it could be a bug in the kernel module too.

R00KIE · 2011-03-02 08:59:51

Are you loading any modules manually? I think that not many things, if any at all, would show up as hd* these days, so you probably have some module loaded that you shouldn't have (just a guess).

My laptop has an ide drive and this is what I get:

> dmesg | egrep "DVD|cdrom"
ata5.00: ATAPI: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7590A, 1.62, max UDMA/33
scsi 4:0:0:0: CD-ROM            Optiarc  DVD RW AD-7590A  1.62 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
cdrom: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

pseudonomous · 2011-03-03 18:37:48

You might be right, but is your CDROM actually a sata drive? Mine is an ide drive, and I'm not really sure how it's supposed to labelled nowadays. The only modules I load manually are the virtualbox modules.

Maybe I actually need to blacklist all the ide modules? I guess it's something to try. Perhaps the old ide sub-system is still sitting along the newer libata system and hasn't quit working until 2.6.37.

Edit: black listing "ide_core" in the rc.conf Modules array does the trick, it might be possible to actually blacklist the cd/dvd-specific modules instead, but I'll worry about that if I find that I actually need some ide modules for something.

This raises the question of why the ide modules are being auto-loaded, but I'll worry about that if I have time.

Thanks again for all your help R00KIE.

Last edited by pseudonomous (2011-03-03 18:59:47)

R00KIE · 2011-03-03 22:07:42

I think this drive is IDE, at least it's what I can find out by looking at the manufacturer's site, I could only be sure by taking the laptop apart (which I don't want to do).

On why the old ide driver is loaded here's my guess (not an expert on this), the old driver claims to support some piece of hardware (probably the ide controller) and for some reason it is probed and loaded first so when the new driver is probed it will not load because the old one is already claiming the device.

Glad I could help debug that problem

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-17 07:30:49

[SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#2 2011-02-17 20:18:22

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#3 2011-02-17 20:53:06

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#4 2011-02-18 08:53:13

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#5 2011-02-26 04:45:12

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#6 2011-03-01 20:19:35

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#7 2011-03-02 00:47:10

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#8 2011-03-02 08:59:51

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#9 2011-03-03 18:37:48

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

#10 2011-03-03 22:07:42

Re: [SOLVED] extremely slow cd burn ( < .1x speed )

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