[PLUG] Re: CDWriter hangs the computer during fixation

[George Langford <amenex@amenex.com>]

Hi Fred & fellow PLUGgers !

Fred wrote in response to my lament about fixation failure:

> Can you try to burn cd w/ cdrecord only?

and gave me the magic words (to be used in root):

> mkisofs -r -T -o cd.iso path_to_dir_with_stuff_for_cd
> cdrecord -dev=DEV_NUM -data cd.iso
> You get DEV_NUM by doing cdrecord -scanbus

(which turns out to be dev_num=0,0,0)

Following which I used the following (verbatim) commands:

mkisofs -r -T -o cd.iso /home/user0/PowerPCMaster/ReportDataToCDrom
cdrecord -dev=0,0,0 -data cd.iso

"ReportDataToCDrom" is a directory having three major 
subdirectories; and a large number of files reside in each 
subdirectory in complex tree structures.

Alas, although this series of steps produced a genuine CD-burn 
which went to completion, the CD-R disk could not be mounted, 
producing the following explanation in the Gnome Graphical User 
Interface (gui):

	mount wrong fs type, bad option,
	bad superblock on /dev/cdrom, or
	too many mounted file systems

What I was copying to CD-R was on the Linux PC's hard drive,
but the data were [originally] in FAT file format (i.e., from
one of the  Power PC's hard drives, written in 32 bit format 
with Windows 98) and nearly all files (465 MB worth) have long 
file names. There were 227296 sectors written on the CD-R disk.
The burner ran at 8X, only 2/3rds as fast as did XCDRoast in
making my first attempt, the one to which I referred earlier.

The MS Word97 files on the Linux PC's hard drive can be opened 
(more-or-less) with Star Office, and the JPG files open OK as 
well.  I'm not sure about whether the many hyperlinks work yet.

Strangely, this coaster can be read with the PowerPC in Windows
Explorer.  But the filenames have been shortened, so I'll need to
find out what "cd.iso" should be changed into in order to retain
the original filenames. Naturally, I'll also need to solve the 
"unmountable" characteristic of the burned CD-R disk.

Then I looked at the CD-R disk that had the fixation failure;
that disk can now be mounted & read with the Linux PC, but the
data are incomplete and the main directory headings have been
lost, so the subdirectories from two major directories have
all been placed in the root directory of the CD-R disk.  Lower
subdirectories are OK and in their original tree arrangement.
The disk can also be read with the Power PC, but, still, not all 
files are there.  They have been accurately copied, however.

These are still professionally unusable CD-R disks, of course.

The process did not hang up the Linux PC; and the disks do
not hang up the Power PC, running W98.  That's progress.

Thanks & best regards,
George Langford
amenex@amenex.com
http://www.amenex.com/
http://www.georgesbasement.com/

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