How do I Mount a DVD-R/RW w/ External Drive in Fedora 34?

Linux Discussion Hardware
1

So I finally have an external drive that works with CDs (audio and writables). However, for some strange reason commercial DVDs (movies etc) or those I made on MacOS or Windows years ago on DVDs won’t mount at all. So I can’t watch them or get data off of them. What do I have to do to get that to work? Right now all it does is spin forever when a DVD is inserted.

The model of drive was purchased on Amazon cheap “Initio DVDRAM GMA4082Nf (0106)”. It states it is a DVD R/RW burner. I would think it should be able to read DVDs… am I missing a driver or library/package?

Do I have to stand on my head to get it to work on Linux… and if so I probably should just keep my wife’s old Windows box around since it has a DVD drive and probably works, just copy to an external and use that to transfer to my Fedora.

2

DVD R/RW means it can read and write DVDs. Since you have a Windows box you could confirm if it works on Windows to narrow down the cause.

I’m afraid that’s about the best advice I can give.

3

Thank you for the reply, I will do that when I get a chance to see if it works better there just for fun. Just seems weird, thought I might just need some optional packages installed.

4

I was just here! Using Handbrake to rip my movie collection, but a few would NOT rip for some reason. Check out the libdvdcss instructions from here. It made all the movies that were stuck work. (obviously those are Ubuntu instructions, probably some for Fedora about as well)

i’ve still ran into a few that I’ll probably have to do more slowly with MakeMKV or just pulling the dvd image, but this gets probably 95% going.

5

Thank you for the reply. I will check it out. Appreciated!

6

Let me know how it works. After I typed that, it failed the next 2 movies I tried. But that’s 4 from 94 movies, plus 4 seasons of 4 different TV shows.

7

It appears that I already have that installed. Thank you though. The problem I have isn’t with Handbrake, it is the DVDs are never mounted in the OS, at all. They just spin forever. Not even talking about ripping DVDs at this point, I have my entire DVD library ripped already so I never have to handle them etc. Even a DVD with files I put on it I can’t mount on the OS, at all. It is so weird!

8

There are 4 types of DVDs.

DVD-R
DVD+R
DVD-RW
DVD+RW

Maybe it does not support one of the formats. DVD-R is the oldest one. Just check in Windows when you get a chance.

9

Don’t forget DVD-RAM. It’s a format used in the late 90s and and formalized as an ISO standard in 2004. Panasonic was the pioneer and last manufacturer to produce DVD-RAM discs.

Maybe sudo usermod -a -G cdrom username and try using the drive again.

10

Have you set the DVD reader’s region? https://www.hecticgeek.com/dvd-region-code-changer-ubuntu-linux/

Sorry to keep throwing Ubuntu ones out but this thread sounds similar, and has a few different recommendations as well. mount - CD/DVD drive not mounted when inserted with Disc of any kind - Ask Ubuntu

11

I believe my issue has been fixed. Although I never saw an “error” the recent attempt to put a DVD in returned an error that it could not be mounted because the mount location was not a folder? Not sure, I brought up the disk utility and reset all to defaults again and now it is working. So strange! Thank you for everyone trying to help me, it is really appreciated!

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