Richard Rauch [Tue, Oct 07, 2003 at 01:35:17AM -0500]:
> First problem, I found that cdrecord didn't believe that cd2 was
> able to work.  It didn't say, as I recall, "device not found," or
> such.  It gave the same "not supported" message whether I tried to
> use cd0, cd1, or cd2.  (I have a real CD drive and a DVD drive,
> separate from the CD-RW.  Don't ask.  (^&)

cdrecord is not supposed to work with /dev/ entries; you should do 
"cdrecord -scanbus" at the beginning and then, use the 3 numbers (bus,
target, LUN) as a parameter to dev=x,x,x on cdrecord's commandline, eg:

   cdrecord dev=15,0,0 -data file.iso

> Eventually, for some reason, it occurred to me to chec /dev/cd*,
> at which point I discovered:  I only have cd0 and cd1!  No wonder
> it didn't work.

> I have some possible explanations:
> 
>  * The media is bad (does this happen?).  The CD-RW drive seems to have
>    a hard time deciding what to do with the media.  Maybe the media is
>    somehow so badly manufactured that it's not able to be recognized/used?

Did you include "blank=fast" or "blank=all" parameter before burning that
CD-RW?

>    The media is old, but has just been sitting in its jewel box in
>    a CD tower.  It is, of course, unused.

Well, might be broken.

Also, speed setting is important, when burning CD-RWs. Make sure you don't
exceed the maximal burning speed; the safe setting should be about 4x
(speed=4 parameter to cdrecord).

>  * The drive needs cleaning (possible).  This would explain why the thing
>    has a hard time recognizing media (harder than I thought it did in the
>    past).

Test it a bit with different CDs (non-RW ones, different brands) before
opening it ;)

> I'm going to try a long shot and power down, disconnect the regular
> CD, and see if being renumbered to cd1 helps the situation.  (Given

I still don't understand how did you manage to cdrecord to use /dev/cd*
entries.

-- 
Michal Pasternak :: http://pasternak.w.lub.pl