[NCLUG] Re: Referring to an external USB device?

[Michael Milligan]

Anthony Earl wrote:
> Mike Wrote:
> 
>> If it is the only "CDROM"-like device in your system, it should show 
>> up as /dev/scd0.  But that requires sr_mod to be loaded, which I 
>> didn't see.  Try "modprobe sr_mod" and then try to access /dev/scd0.  
>> If that works, arrange to have it loaded automagically by usbmgr.  
>> That's all I've got for suggestions, not having messed with USB much.
>>
>> I've got a DVD+RW drive though, so if you have trouble after getting 
>> it working, I can help you then.  ;-)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Mike
>>
> Thank-you Mike.  The lack of the sr_mod module was the problem.  I can 
> now mount the device found at /dev/scd0 and  xcdroast detects it.

Cool.

> I'm trying out growisofs as I type.  It claims it won't be done for a 
> few hours to copy 450MB from my hardrive (based on: 
> growisofs -Z /dev/scd0 -R -J /home
> 
> If you have any recommended tools to try with a DVD+RW I'd be happy to 
> hear them.

Only use growisofs on DVD+R media and not on DVD+RW media.  I've had 
lots of trouble with it failing on DVD+RW media, not sure why, but 
guessing it has something to do with it's built-in version of dd.  For 
DVD+RW, use mkisofs directly and pipe it to "dd of=/dev/scd0 obs=32k" to 
overwrite the disk, per the suggestions on the DVD+RW Tools website.  Or 
use the kernel patch to just mount the media and write (after a format, 
of course, of a new disk).  ;-)

I did expermiment with formating a DVD+RW disk with an ext2 filesystem 
on it.  It does work, but even mounting with "noatime" it is slow as 
molassis.  Dubious usefulness given that.

Regards,
Mike

-- 
Michael Milligan  --  Free Agent  --  milli at acmeps.com