Hey no worries, happy to help, or at least try to .
Have you tried using ONLY iso9660 as the filesystem in fstab?
I did a little bit of googling about DVD filesystem types with Windows, and I ddid not come up with anything abnormal regarding possible filesystem types. Everything comes back to UDF or ISO9660.
Here's another idea:
When you insert a disc and close the drive, the drive spins, maybe the light turns on a bit, then the drive stops, right? OK, without trying to mount anything, stick the DVD in and close the drive. Wait till it stops, and open a console window and get root priveledges. type lshw. (If your system doesn't have the lshw command, you can download it from sourceforge.net or a similar site, and install it).
This will give you all the info the system has on the hardware installed in the system, including (in my case anyways) information on what type of media is inside the optical drives. this will atleast tell you that the drive itself, despite Ubuntu, can see the disk and recognizes it.

It just hit 5am here so I'm gonna get some sleep - take care and thanks!

OK, I just read that FAQ page, but I don;t see what you mean about what might be the root of the Problem... Unless (I hope not) you mean the files you put onto the disk, aren't actually there :S.
\?

OK, no worries, LOL, I was up till 5 this morning too
OK, well perhaps see ya again 'tomorrow'
Take care!

Typically data CDs use iso9660 and DVDs use the udf filesystem. libdvdcss is for decoding movies which should not apply here. The live file system is also known as packet writing. There are several versions as described in the URL you posted. Nero InCD or Roxio DirectCD is the same thing but older. Packet writing lets one write to a CD or CDRW just like a floppy disk. Packet writing requires a special format and in the past took awhile to complete.

I am not familar with Vista but it appears that you have an multiple options now for burning. I do no know the current status of linux packet writing or the latest version it supports but if Vista defaults to the latest linux may not be capable of reading it.

So You might need to restore Vista on your PC and then write DVDs as mastered.

Output of lshw:

*-cdrom
description: DVD-RAM writer
product: Slimtype DVD A DS8AZH
physical id: 0
bus info: ide@0.0
logical name: /dev/hda
version: NH61
capabilities: packet atapi cdrom removable nonmagnetic dma lba iordy audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
*-disc
physical id: 0
logical name: /dev/hda

Michael:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Windows Vista defaults to some sort of packet writing format instead of a mastered DVD; you are required to 'close the session in order to be compatible with other computers' so I assumed it would write to *some* sort of standard format, but it's looking like that's not the case.

Did you look at the formatting options when you burned the disk. And if so do you remember what it defaulted to?

It defaults to the Live Data formatting

And I assume that it is version 2.5. So can you find another Vista computer and reburn using the mastered format?

Hi Michael good of you to join in with some added insight into the Vista-Mystery file system!
...A drag to have to reinstall Vista to get around this, but.. Could be worse

Hi guys - I just put the DVDs into my friend's lappy with Win XP Home and it reads them fine. Says they're UDF, nothing special - I'd really like to be able to read DVD+Rs in linux if possible. I put a regular CD into mine to make sure it was mounting ok and the CD-R mounted perfectly. So I changed my fstab to:

/dev/hda /media/cdrom0 udf defaults,user,ro 0 0

which made the "spinny" bit last longer and it sounded like it was actually reading something, and I got this:

hunter@hunter-laptop:~$ dmesg | tail
[17209434.944000] hda: media error (bad sector): status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
[17209434.944000] hda: media error (bad sector): error=0x30 { LastFailedSense=0x03 }
[17209434.944000] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[17209434.944000] end_request: I/O error, dev hda, sector 8786176
[17209434.944000] Buffer I/O error on device hda, logical block 1098272
[17209440.568000] UDF-fs: No fileset found
[17209486.336000] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
[17209486.444000] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
[17210353.760000] UDF-fs: No fileset found
[17210473.336000] UDF-fs: No fileset found

OK, notwithstanding any unknown difference between Vista and other Windows, I am still inclined to think it is a UDF filesystem. As to which version is the question.
I have a CDR/RW drive here on my Linux system, and one of the CD's I use in it was made with WinXP, and it is formatted as a floppy disc. On Windows, I can write, add/delete, etc, from it, just like a floppy.
However, when I mount it on my Linux, I mount it as UDF. I can't recall right off which 'version' of UDF, but something like 1.0.2 is coming to mind.
Micheal, is there a way of turning 'multi-mode' on for Hunter's DVD drive, or is that even an option? I ask because of the DriveReady Seek-complete errors)

You might be in luck.
http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Packet..._Without_Tears

GrapefruiTgrirl, your correct packet writing is a UDF filesystem. But it appears that Ubuntu does not include the required tools by default.

WOW! Now that is interesting!! <scratching my head> Confusing, a little, but very interesting, and something I did not know was possible (and actually may be more work than it looks like for me using Slackware).
Hunter, looks like you have the potential to be, as Michael says, "in luck" as you have Ubuntu!
I'm gonna see about implementing this on my system too.
Thanks Michael

EDIT: Michael RE: your edit there; I guess Slack doesn't support it either by default, but I will do my best to implement that UDFtoolset on my system, and post back with results. Maybe I will be able to read and write my round shiny 'floppy' after all

UPDATE: Sheesh, the Sourceforge page lists more open bugs and support requests than I'm used to.. Hmm, this will be an interesting project.

Hi guys this definitely seems like it's on the write track; I wonder if I'm not implementing it properly though?

I have installed the utftools and configured them and started them, and then it crashes about the format again when I try to open my "dvdwriter":

[17210593.276000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e058 <keycode>' to make it known.
[17214356.100000] pktcdvd: writer pktcdvd0 mapped to hda
[17214363.324000] hda: media error (bad sector): status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
[17214363.324000] hda: media error (bad sector): error=0x30 { LastFailedSense=0x03 }
[17214363.324000] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[17214363.324000] end_request: I/O error, dev hda, sector 6971008
[17214363.324000] Buffer I/O error on device pktcdvd0, logical block 871376
[17214444.300000] UDF-fs: No fileset found
[17214467.076000] UDF-fs: No fileset found
[17214659.856000] UDF-fs: No fileset found