dvd not recognized

[bigwig44]

Hello!

I installed Mint 9 recently on a Sony Vaio Laptop PCG-FRV37 with 1 Gb RAM, and 60 Gb hard drive, and I am only running Mint 9.

Initially, any disc--cd or dvd--inserted into the DVD drive wasn't recognized. I then searched Linux Mint Forum posts for a similar problem, and Fred from North Carolina told someone to ensure there is a directory in /media for the drive, and to add a line to /etc/fstab. So I did and this, and this is what my /etc/fstab looks like now:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=2b6813c0-5fd5-4376-9ec8-9173bdafc5cf / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=9a6df1bd-ce31-4ba9-8fb6-e0f0aad60523 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sr0 /media/sr0 udf,iso9660 noauto,ro,users,noexec

I also did: #mkdir /media/sr0

At this point, audio CDs would automount and the default multimedia program would begin to play audio tracks, and an icon would appear on my desktop indicating the presence of the disk. But only for CDs: DVDs still won't play and no icon appears on my desktop. I ran VLC and tried to play the disk and I got the following error:

Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///dev/sr0'. Check the log for details.

dmesg said:

[11504.242704] sr: ASC=0x9 <<vendor>> ASCQ=0x90
[11504.312577] sr0: CDROM (ioctl) error, command: Read TOC/PMA/ATIP 43 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 00
[11504.312598] sr: Sense Key : Hardware Error [current]
[11504.312603] sr: ASC=0x9 <<vendor>> ASCQ=0x90
[11504.412438] sr0: CDROM (ioctl) error, command: Read TOC/PMA/ATIP 43 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 00
[11504.412457] sr: Sense Key : Hardware Error [current]
[11504.412463] sr: ASC=0x9 <<vendor>> ASCQ=0x90
[11504.452400] sr0: CDROM (ioctl) error, command: Read DVD structure ad 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 08 00 00
[11504.452418] sr: Sense Key : Hardware Error [current]
[11504.452423] sr: ASC=0x9 <<vendor>> ASCQ=0x90



Does anyone have any idea where to look next or what to do next? Are there any other files or other information about my setup I ought to provide to the forum?

Could it be a permissions issue?

Thanks in advance!

[bigwig44]

I tried everything I could think of to resolve this, and finally installed WinXP and had the same problem, CDs function well, DVDs aren't recognized at all. If the drive isn't completely broken, it's certainly degraded.

[Rubberman]

Unfortunately, Sony Vaio laptops have very proprietary hardware and it is a real PITA to use them if you aren't running a Sony branded version of Windows since they require special drivers. Forget Linux for a lot of it. My wife has a Vaio and gave up trying to get Linux to work well on it - she is a PhD physicist and Linux expert, working in the computer division of Fermi National Lab and having/maintaining any number of Linux systems from supercomputing clusters running Scientific Linux to laptops and netbooks running several different versions of Linux. She's my "go to" person with I am stumped with a Linux problem...

[bigwig44]

do you mean to say that if I reinstalled windows xp but with a pro version I've got instead of the home version which came with the laptop, _that_ might explain why the dvd drive doesn't function as expected, and that if I were to install the original version (with the original 20 character key code, that it may still _work_??

[Rubberman]

Well... maybe. Unfortunately, unless you try that, there is not way to tell. Alternatively, you might be able to download and install the drivers from the Sony web site. Worth a look, anyway.