Duplicating Data CDs with FreeBSD

I needed to become familiar with burning CDs on FreeBSD to support plans for live CD-based systems. I recently bought a Plextor PX-708UF DVD+-R/RW CD-R/RW drive and an Adaptec DuoConnect PC Card Adapter. I already reported on how these appear to FreeBSD.

For testing purposes and to create my own media set, I duplicated the three CD-ROMs released as Fedora Core 2. To convert the CD-ROM into a .iso file for burning, I used this syntax:

dd if=/dev/cd0 of=/var/iso/fedora_core_disc3.iso bs=2048

Here's a few notes on this command. /dev/cd0 is how my Plextor drive appears to FreeBSD. My laptop's native CD/DVD reader is /dev/acd0. I could not get this command to work without including 'bs=2048'. I learned why after reading a FreeBSD Diary entry:

"Data on CDs is written in blocks of 2 kB. By default dd reads 512
bytes at a time, and the CD driver doesn't support this. It would
work if you use bs=2k."

When I tried dd without the bs=2048 argument, I got this error:

dd: /dev/acd0: Invalid argument

I also tried acquiring the .iso using my native CD/DVD reader. I got this error, although the .iso creation seemed to work ok:

acd0: FAILURE - READ_BIG status=51
 sensekey=ILLEGAL REQUEST error=1

Others have reported this issue, and some suggested editing /boot/loader.conf accordingly:

hw.ata.atapi_dma=0

This didn't fix the issue for me, so I acquired the .iso using the Plextor. It produced no visible errors.

When the process was done I wanted to check if the resulting .iso matched the CD from which it was derived. From Kris Kennaway I learned this command to get a MD5 hash of the original CD:

dd if=/dev/cd0 bs=2048 | md5

I then compared that output with the result of running md5 on this .iso. If they matched, the copy was good. This was the case. However, the MD5 hashes did not match the versions available at the Fedora site. As I trust the source of these CDs, I assume the difference is a result of taking an original Red Hat .iso, burning it to CD, and then deriving an image of that CD in .iso format. Perhaps the block sizes did not match up exactly?

To burn the new .iso to CD-R, I had to install cdrecord, found in sysutils/cdrecord. The first task was to ensure cdrecord could find my drive:

# cdrecord -scanbus
Cdrecord 2.00.3 (i386-unknown-freebsd5.2.1) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 Jorg Schilling
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'PLEXTOR ' 'DVDR   PX-708A  ' '1.06' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) *
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *

Once I knew where to find the drive, I checked what options it supported:

# cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 -checkdrive driveropts=help
Cdrecord 2.00.3 (i386-unknown-freebsd5.2.1) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 Jorg Schilling
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: '0,0,0'
scsibus: 0 target: 0 lun: 0
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
Driveropts: 'help'
atapi: 0
Device type    : Removable CD-ROM
Version        : 0
Response Format: 1
Vendor_info    : 'PLEXTOR '
Identifikation : 'DVDR   PX-708A  '
Revision       : '1.06'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
cdrecord: This version of cdrecord does not include DVD-R/DVD-RW support code.
cdrecord: If you need DVD-R/DVD-RW support, ask the Author for cdrecord-ProDVD.
Driver options:
burnfree        Prepare writer to use BURN-Free technology
noburnfree      Disable using BURN-Free technology
varirec=val     Set VariRec Laserpower to -2, -1, 0, 1, 2
                        Only works for audio and if speed is set to 4

Now that I knew what options to use, I burned the .iso to the CD-R. You'll see I enabled 'burnfree,' defined in the man page as "Turn the support for Buffer Underrun Free writing on."

# cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 speed=8 driveropts=burnfree -eject 
 -data /var/iso/fedora_core_2_disc3.iso
Cdrecord 2.00.3 (i386-unknown-freebsd5.2.1) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 Jorg Schilling
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: '0,0,0'
scsibus: 0 target: 0 lun: 0
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
Driveropts: 'burnfree'
atapi: 0
Device type    : Removable CD-ROM
Version        : 0
Response Format: 1
Vendor_info    : 'PLEXTOR '
Identifikation : 'DVDR   PX-708A  '
Revision       : '1.06'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
cdrecord: This version of cdrecord does not include DVD-R/DVD-RW support code.
cdrecord: If you need DVD-R/DVD-RW support, ask the Author for cdrecord-ProDVD.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R driver (mmc_cdr).
Driver flags   : MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE VARIREC 
Supported modes: TAO PACKET SAO SAO/R96P SAO/R96R RAW/R16 RAW/R96P RAW/R96R
Drive buf size : 1190112 = 1162 KB
FIFO size      : 4194304 = 4096 KB
Track 01: data   637 MB        
otal size:      732 MB (72:35.06) = 326630 sectors
Lout start:      732 MB (72:37/05) = 326630 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
ATIP info from disk:
  Indicated writing power: 5
  Is not unrestricted
  Is not erasable
  Disk sub type: Medium Type A, high Beta category (A+) (3)
  ATIP start of lead in:  -11634 (97:26/66)
  ATIP start of lead out: 359846 (79:59/71)
Disk type:    Short strategy type (Phthalocyanine or similar)
Manuf. index: 3
Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics Corporation
Blocks total: 359846 Blocks current: 359846 Blocks remaining: 33216
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 8 in real TAO mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write    0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
BURN-Free is OFF.
Turning BURN-Free on
Performing OPC...
Starting new track at sector: 0
Track 01:    0 of  637 MB written.
...edited...
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 668934144/668934144 (326628 sectors).
Writing  time:  552.030s
Average write speed   8.0x.
Min drive buffer fill was 99%
Fixating...
Fixating time:   32.601s
cdrecord: fifo had 10537 puts and 10537 gets.
cdrecord: fifo was 0 times empty and 10463 times full, min fill was 90%.

At some point in the future I'll use the drive to create DVDs, and report how that turned out as well.

The fact that I burned these CDs isn't rocket science, but I wanted to show the gear I used in case other people are looking to buy CD/DVD burners for FreeBSD.

I used a few other resources when learning how to burn CDs, including the FreeBSD Handbook and CD Burning from the Command Line.