Linux – determining dvd drive capability

dvdlinux

Aside from checking the manual for a particular DVD drive, is there any way to determine if a DVD drive supports DVD +R/-R (DL) for both reading and writing?

In Windows, Nero InfoTool is a convenient way to determine the capabilities of a drive. Is there an equivalent tool (or method) for linux?

Best Answer

You should be able to use

less /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info

to display the functionality of the DVD drive. 0 means an option is not enabled and a 1 signifies an option that is available.

If you have libcdio installed you can use the cd-drive command for more detailed drive information.

K3b is a graphical tool you can use that is similar to Nero.

Navigate to:
Settings ==> Configure K3b ==> Devices

This should display the DVD+R status.

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CD/DVD disk reading test tool for Linux

To simply see if a drive can be read, you can use dd(1). This will read in the contents of the CDROM and will ignore/discard the data (note that the CDROM device may have another name on your system):

 dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/null

It is also possible to compare this to an ISO image:

dd if=/dev/cdrom | md5sum - /path/to/file.iso

This will print a checksum for the CD and for the ISO file. If the checksums match, the CD contents match the ISO image.

Bash – Read the title from a DVD

You could use blkid for that:

DVD_NAME=$(blkid -o value -s LABEL /dev/dvd)

(you need to have read permission to /dev/dvd for that).

Or:

DVD_NAME=$(udevadm info -n dvd -q property | sed -n 's/^ID_FS_LABEL=//p')

for which you don't need any special privilege (udev (running as root) queries the label name using blkid and updates a device database which you query with udevadm).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

CD/DVD disk reading test tool for Linux

Bash – Read the title from a DVD

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