Can you tell whether I have a hardware or software problem with a DVD-ROM drive?

Trying to copy the content of a DVD on a Asrock ION 330 running Maverick, i.e. with:

dd if=/dev/sr0 of=dvdcopy

...I get errors in /var/log/messages:

Jan 15 17:18:15 asrock kernel: [ 2616.445966] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Unhandled sense code
Jan 15 17:18:15 asrock kernel: [ 2616.445975] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
Jan 15 17:18:15 asrock kernel: [ 2616.445984] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Jan 15 17:18:15 asrock kernel: [ 2616.445994] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: Id CRC or ECC error
Jan 15 17:18:15 asrock kernel: [ 2616.446004] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 02 00


I'd tell it is a hardware problem, but it happens with various DVDs and on a second PC, also running Maverick... Both the PCs previously ran Lucid, same problems.

Edit: the DVD-ROMs are proven working on my brother's PC.

Edit #2: I'd like also hints about what to look for on Google.. thanks!

Solution 1:

I think it is an encryption problem.
You may need libdvdcss

Search for it synaptic or

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 libdvdread4 libdvdcss-dev

Solution 2:

If you need to copy a DVD use brasero. Save the dvd as an iso.

Solution 3:

You do not give any clue what hardware you have. I had that problem (and suspend/hibernate issue) on an old Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop. It had a hot swap drive bay that had a DVD drive in it. But apparently because it could be hot swapped, Linux kept polling for a floppy drive, resulting in log errors attempting to read fd0, lack of auto mounting USB or CD/DVD's, and failed to suspend or hibernate because it could not put udisks-deamon to sleep, which kept polling for the non-existing floppy.

So if you have no floppy and are getting any fd0 errors in dmesg or /var/log/messages similar to "end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0", either disable the floppy in your BIOS, or if that does not work:

Add following to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf (use sudo or gksu to run your editor):

# In /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
blacklist floppy

Then do: sudo update-initramfs -u

Then reboot and see if USB and other removable media auto mounts when inserted.

Note that other partitions on internal drives are not auto mounted unless you make proper mount points (usually in /media unless you want it mounted elsewhere) and entries in /etc/fstab (preferably using UUID). Although, they will mount if you have permission and select them in Places.