On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Richard Rauch <rkr@olib.org> wrote:

> (I have a real CD drive and a DVD drive, separate from the CD-RW.  Don't
> ask. 

$ dmesg |grep cd
cd0 at atapibus0 drive 1: <ATAPI CD-RW 16/12/40X, 97XX  V100C, V100C> type
5 cdrom removable
cd0: 32-bit data port
cd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 2
cd0(pciide0:1:1): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 (using DMA data
transfers)
cd1 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 0: <NAKAMICH, MJ-5.16S, 1.02> SCSI2 5/cdrom
removable
cd2 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 1: <NAKAMICH, MJ-5.16S, 1.02> SCSI2 5/cdrom
removable
cd3 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 2: <NAKAMICH, MJ-5.16S, 1.02> SCSI2 5/cdrom
removable
cd4 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 3: <NAKAMICH, MJ-5.16S, 1.02> SCSI2 5/cdrom
removable
cd5 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 4: <NAKAMICH, MJ-5.16S, 1.02> SCSI2 5/cdrom
removable
cd6 at scsibus0 target 4 lun 0: <RICOH, MP6201S, 2.20> SCSI2 5/cdrom
removable

Something like that, you mean?  ;-)

> 
> So I did mknod's for {,r}cd2{a,d} and tried again.
> 
> 
> Now, it goes to completion trying to burn, but the disks that I get
> out are totally useless.  I'm not sure that the burner is doing anything
> to them.

On Tue, 7 Oct 2003 02:19:39 -0500, Richard Rauch <rkr@olib.org> wrote:
> Likewise, a music CD and old software CD do not appear to be recognized
> by the CD-RW drive.
> 
> It looks like media can be ruled out.  The drive may be broken, dirty,
> or (remotely possibly) unhappy sitting at cd2 rather than cd1 or cd0.

If it were mine, I'd discard the drive.  I'd recable it first, make it
cd[01].  If that doesn't work, and you still can't mount a manufactured CD
with it, get a new writer.  

I don't think your media are stale.  CD players fail remarkably quickly
(to this old fart, at any rate).  I don't know about dirt; I figure the
laser gives out.  

--jkl