CdWriter - Tech - The Caboteria

HP 9350i 10x4x32 IDE, slave on ide0

As of Linux 2.6 you don't seem to need to use SCSI emulation anymore as long as you tell =cdrecord= what to do using =dev=ATAPI= on the command line.

Also make sure that the =ide_generic= and =ide_cd= modules are loaded.

<pre>
$ cdrecord -scanbus dev=ATAPI
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01a27 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 J&#65533;rg Schilling
NOTE: this version of cdrecord is an inofficial (modified) release of cdrecord
      and thus may have bugs that are not present in the original version.
      Please send bug reports and support requests to <cdrtools@packages.debian.org>.
      The original author should not be bothered with problems of this version.
 
scsidev: 'ATAPI'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related libscg interface code is in pre alpha.
Warning: There may be fatal problems.
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'HP      ' 'CD-Writer+ 9300 ' '1.0b' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) *
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *

</pre>

---
You use *mkisofs* to make the iso 9660 filesystem image and then *cdrecord* to write it to the disk (both packages can be dselected).  For example, this will build a filesystem image called /mnt/test/cd_image with /home/cvs as /cvs, /home/www as /www, and /home/postgres as /postgres:

<pre>
# cd /home
# mkisofs -r -o /mnt/test/cd_image cvs/=cvs www/=www postgres/=postgres
</pre>

You can mount the image via loopback to see if it's what you want:

<pre>
# mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 /mnt/test/cd_image /mnt/cdrom
</pre>

Then you can burn a CD with the image (note that the =blank=fast= flag tells cdrecord to erase the media first - this only works with cd/rw media, also note that the ="0,0,0"= matches what =cdrecord -scanbus= output above):

<pre>
# cdrecord -v speed=8 dev=ATAPI:0,0,0 -data /mnt/test/cd_image 
</pre>

If you're burning a rewriteable CD you can use =blank=fast= just before =-data=.

Alternatively you can pipe the output of mkisofs into cdrecord.  This doesn't chew up a lot of temporary disk storage, but you don't get to look at the results before you burn them.  This is probably OK if you're using cd/rw media or if you're running the same script over and over (e.g. backups):

<pre>
# cd /home
# mkisofs -r cvs/=cvs www/=www postgres/=postgres | cdrecord -v speed=4 dev=ATAPI:0,0,0 blank=fast -data -
</pre>

The HOWTO talks about having to do a pro-forma =mkisofs= run to find out how big the image will be but it appears that the HP 9350i doesn't require this.

*Audio CD's*

Of the tools that you can "dselect" only cdrtoaster appears to be able to take mp3's as input and burn them onto an audio disc.

I tried two KDE programs - arson and k3d and neither was capable of actually burning a disc.

On the other hand, burning is pretty easy if you've got the wav files handy:
<pre>
wodim -v *.wav
</pre>

*DVD's*

DVD's are *very* sensitive to scratches, fingerprints, etc.  If you let your kids handle DVD's then it's a very good idea to make a copy and have them watch *that* so when they inevitably scratch it you've got the original someplace safe.

For many CD's you can use [[http://vobcopy.org/][vobcopy]] to pull the vobs from the original disk and stash them someplace safe.

Some CD's are a little more challenging.  They use the same trick that they used to use back in the C64 days: they put deliberate errors on the DVD in the hopes that they will confuse the software that people use to play them.  For those disks you need to [[http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html][ddrescue]] them (=dd_help= helps greatly with this), then [[http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/][dvdbackup]] the vobs that you want to keep.

Some tips: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Backup_a_DVD