Do IDE cable that are cable select make a difference?

[DJW]

I have a M848AL U Rev. 2.1 motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP CPU. I assume my IDE ribbon cables are cable select due to black, End (master) gray (mid connector) and blue (mother B) colors of the connectors. In the documentation of the mother board there is absolutely no mention of Cable select. Rather it says to jump as master or slave. I have a DVD model AW-Q170A-B2 that will show all disc types but DVD doubled layered. It burns fine but I have not had the occasion to burn a DVD doubled layered. I realized the problem when I tried to install a Linux double layered installer DVD. It started the installation then errored as if it could not find the files it needed I assume on the second layer of the DVD.
It shows correctly as the master on the secondary IDE bus in the BIOS.
The only thing so far I have come up with is the ribbon cables I thought that they would be backwards compatible.
Could this be the problem?

 

[Paul]

I have a M848AL U Rev. 2.1 motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP CPU. I assume my IDE ribbon cables are cable select due to black, End (master) gray (mid connector) and blue (mother B) colors of the connectors. In the documentation of the mother board there is absolutely no mention of Cable select. Rather it says to jump as master or slave. I have a DVD model AW-Q170A-B2 that will show all disc types but DVD doubled layered. It burns fine but I have not had the occasion to burn a DVD doubled layered. I realized the problem when I tried to install a Linux double layered installer DVD. It started the installation then errored as if it could not find the files it needed I assume on the second layer of the DVD.
It shows correctly as the master on the secondary IDE bus in the BIOS.
The only thing so far I have come up with is the ribbon cables I thought that they would be backwards compatible.
Could this be the problem?

That's not your problem. If the drive could not be seen
or accessed, I'd start looking at jumpers. If the drive
works for at least one test CD, then the cabling and
jumpers are fine.

Either Google the optical drive model, and verify it does DL.
Or get a copy of the free Nero utility that lists
out optical drive capabilities. It's a Windows
utility unfortunately - which is why you use Google,
enter the drive model number as a search term, and
try to find a picture of someone running the Nero
tool against that particular optical drive. There
are two review sites, that review new optical drives,
and sometimes they have pictures of that screen.

The tool is called Nero InfoTool, and it was actually
written by a third-party (an individual) and bundled
with Nero. I think Nero offers it (free) from their
ftp server, if you can figure out where it is stored.
But it's a Windows only utility. In this example photo,
the two clusters of tick boxes, one set is for disc
read capability, the other set for disk write capability.
And in that example, the DVD+R DL read box is not ticked.
Yet it can write to DVD+R DL. Which is surely strange.

http://www.softportal.com/scr/2549/nero-infotool-mid-1.gif

That tool has been around for a while, and the appearance
of the GUI has changed slightly over the years. When I
pick a sample photo of it, I usually pick a picture
I "like", rather than picking the latest copy, which
might be more ugly looking.

I expect Linux has some way to list optical drive
capabilities as well, but I haven't a clue where I'd
start looking for that.

Usually the single page spec for the drive will also
list all of those, but you can never find a copy of
that when you need one. And the Nero tool, reads
it right out of the drive. So somehow, the drive
reports that stuff, like what it can read or write.

Paul

 

[Flasherly]

The

only thing so far I have come up with is the ribbon cables I thought
that they would be backwards compatible.
Could this be the problem?

-
Yes, that could be the problem. Not one necessarily to be ruled out.
Since early drive/cable dependency devices, I'm always careful that,
in the event of anomalies, there's always extra known good cables
available to re-check myself. Also test for inter-device
incompatibility interactions by removing them, one by one, to test in
singularity if need be. A non-CS ribbon is getting pretty rare, and
follow thru with jumpers to the CS scheme (other jumper logical states
may be tested apart from that, although I'd find that dimly
counter-intuitive if a jumper worked in any state contrary to its
placement on the cable).

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

The only thing so far I have come up with is the ribbon cables I thought that
they would be backwards compatible.
Could this be the problem?

No.

 

[Flasherly]

No.

Yeah, you're right. I didn't read the entire post. He's burning
optical media but trying to blame a cable when doing double-layered
burns (whatever the hell DL is).

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

I expect Linux has some way to list optical drive
capabilities as well, but I haven't a clue where I'd
start looking for that.

cdrecord -prcap

[me@linuxbox ~]$ cdrecord -prcap

Device was not specified. Trying to find an appropriate drive...
Detected CD-R drive: /dev/cdrw
Using /dev/cdrom of unknown capabilities
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 5
Response Format: 2
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'HL-DT-ST'
Identification : 'DVDRAM GH22NS70 '
Revision : 'EX00'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.

Drive capabilities, per MMC-3 page 2A:

Does read CD-R media
Does write CD-R media
Does read CD-RW media
Does write CD-RW media
Does read DVD-ROM media
Does read DVD-R media
Does write DVD-R media
Does read DVD-RAM media
Does write DVD-RAM media
Does support test writing

Does read Mode 2 Form 1 blocks
Does read Mode 2 Form 2 blocks
Does read digital audio blocks
Does restart non-streamed digital audio reads accurately
Does support Buffer-Underrun-Free recording
Does read multi-session CDs
Does read fixed-packet CD media using Method 2
Does not read CD bar code
Does not read R-W subcode information
Does read raw P-W subcode data from lead in
Does return CD media catalog number
Does return CD ISRC information
Does support C2 error pointers
Does not deliver composite A/V data

Does play audio CDs
Number of volume control levels: 256
Does support individual volume control setting for each channel
Does support independent mute setting for each channel
Does not support digital output on port 1
Does not support digital output on port 2

Loading mechanism type: tray
Does support ejection of CD via START/STOP command
Does not lock media on power up via prevent jumper
Does allow media to be locked in the drive via PREVENT/ALLOW command
Is not currently in a media-locked state
Does not support changing side of disk
Does not have load-empty-slot-in-changer feature
Does not support Individual Disk Present feature

Maximum read speed: 8467 kB/s (CD 48x, DVD 6x)
Current read speed: 8467 kB/s (CD 48x, DVD 6x)
Maximum write speed: 8468 kB/s (CD 48x, DVD 6x)
Current write speed: 8468 kB/s (CD 48x, DVD 6x)
Rotational control selected: CLV/PCAV
Buffer size in KB: 2048
Copy management revision supported: 1
Number of supported write speeds: 11
Write speed # 0: 8468 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 48x, DVD 6x)
Write speed # 1: 8467 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 48x, DVD 6x)
Write speed # 2: 7057 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 40x, DVD 5x)
Write speed # 3: 7056 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 40x, DVD 5x)
Write speed # 4: 5646 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 32x, DVD 4x)
Write speed # 5: 5645 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 32x, DVD 4x)
Write speed # 6: 4235 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 24x, DVD 3x)
Write speed # 7: 4234 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 24x, DVD 3x)
Write speed # 8: 2822 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 16x, DVD 2x)
Write speed # 9: 1411 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 8x, DVD 1x)
Write speed # 10: 706 kB/s CLV/PCAV (CD 4x, DVD 0x)

Supported CD-RW media types according to MMC-4 feature 0x37:
Does write multi speed CD-RW media
Does write high speed CD-RW media
Does write ultra high speed CD-RW media
Does write ultra high speed+ CD-RW media

[me@linuxbox ~]$

[root@linuxbox]# lshw -class disk

*-cdrom
description: DVD-RAM writer
product: DVDRAM GH22NS70
vendor: HL-DT-ST
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@5:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/cdrom
logical name: /dev/cdrw
logical name: /dev/dvd
logical name: /dev/dvdrw
logical name: /dev/scd0
logical name: /dev/sr0
version: EX00
capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
configuration: ansiversion=5 status=nodisc

[root@linuxbox mdt]#

 

[DJW]

I have a M848AL U Rev. 2.1 motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP CPU. I assume my IDE ribbon cables are cable select due to black, End (master) gray (mid connector) and blue (mother B) colors of the connectors. In the documentation of the mother board there is absolutely no mention of Cable select. Rather it says to jump as master or slave. I have a DVD model AW-Q170A-B2 that will show all disc types but DVD doubled layered. It burns fine but I have not had the occasion to burn a DVD doubled layered. I realized the problem when I tried to install a Linux double layered installer DVD. It started the installation then errored as if it could not find the files it needed Iassume on the second layer of the DVD.

It shows correctly as the master on the secondary IDE bus in the BIOS.

The only thing so far I have come up with is the ribbon cables I thought that they would be backwards compatible.

Could this be the problem?

original poster here I pulled the DVD drive and put it in a win XP computerand ran nero info tool and it show that DVD+R DL was selected only DVD-RAMand Mt Rainier were not checked I also moved it on the Linux computer to the primary IDE also with CS cables jumped as slave and still could not see or read a DVD double layers disc
Any other ideas why it will not read a DL DVD?

 

[Paul]

original poster here I pulled the DVD drive and put it in a win XP computer and ran nero info tool and it show that DVD+R DL was selected only DVD-RAM and Mt Rainier were not checked I also moved it on the Linux computer to the primary IDE also with CS cables jumped as slave and still could not see or read a DVD double layers disc
Any other ideas why it will not read a DL DVD?

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.aspx?p=357294

"Dual-layer DVDs have a thin substrate layer between the
first and second layers of DVD data.

Inside the drive, a single laser is refocused when switching
between layers, accounting for a slight delay when moving from
the top to the bottom layer.

DVD+R DL discs use a single refocusable laser to write both layers"

There is a chart with four different entries, for optical types here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#Dual-layer_recording

CD = 780nm
DVD = 650nm <--- red
BluRay = 405nm <--- blue

A backward compatible DVD drive has two lasers.
A BluRay could have three lasers (i.e. the ones that claim to play all media)
A CD laser used to cost a buck or so. Don't know about the others.

Each laser is driven by a laser driver chip. The power
level is programmable, both during read and write (so
read power level isn't the same as write, and when
writing, the write scheme can vary with the media type).

If a Dual Layer operation commences, that means the
drive claimed it was DL, and the operation is going ahead.
If it dies half way through, then the focus could be broken
(or out of focus for one layer only). While reading one
layer takes more laser power than reading the other, the laser
would need even more power for writing. If the lasers had a back-facet
monitor, the actual power level could be observed, and the
drive would be able to tell you when the laser was dead.
But then the laser wouldn't be $1, if they added a back
facet monitor. It would probably be $1.50 So if the
laser isn't doing well, the drive may not be clever enough
to "turn it up".

In addition to a laser power or focus issue, there is the
firmware to consider. A failure could potentially be
caused by a very early firmware. When I buy an optioal
drive (not that often), the first thing I do is flash upgrade
the drive. As that adds more media tags. When a media tag is
recognized, that gives the drive more useful information
when it is called on to write something.

While in the past, a buffer underrun would have cooked (made
a coaster) out of the media, current drives have sufficient
underrun protection, that a slow computer is no longer a liability
when writing discs. At one time, if a user foolishly connected
a fast optical drive, to a USB 1.1 port, it might have been
possible to data starve the drive. But drives now, seen to have
an un-ending list of underrun protection schemes (each invented
to get around patent or trademark issues). So I doubt that's a
problem any more. I remember the first time I tried to burn
a DL disc, I noticed the status LED on my drive, the LED would
only "blip" once in a while. Turned out, the USB2 driver for my
chipset, had somehow disappeared, and the damn drive was running
USB 1.1 rates. After reinstalling my chipset drivers, the LED
would stay on steady, on my next burn attempt Now, that's
something I don't check very often (Device Manager). I
simply assume Windows isn't going to pull the rug out
from underneath me when I'm not looking

You're on an IDE cable, and the IDE cable has a decent bandwidth.
The only time it wouldn't, is if Windows switches to PIO mode
on its own.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

I'm thinking your problem is mechanical (focus), but that's
just a guess. If there were any more "interesting" symptoms,
maybe it would narrow down the issue.

Paul

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

Any other ideas why it will not read a DL DVD?

It's ****ed. They're dirt cheap, replace it!