drive-info

Drive Info

Diagnostic snapshot of attached optical burners and any currently-loaded media.

When to use

• Before starting a burn job, to confirm device path and media compatibility.
• Troubleshooting "why isn't my drive being detected" or "what disc is in there right now".

Inputs to gather

• Optional explicit device path (/dev/sr0, etc.). Otherwise enumerate all.

Procedure

1. Verify user is in the cdrom group: groups | grep -q cdrom. If not, instruct sudo usermod -aG cdrom $USER && newgrp cdrom. (Read-only ops may still work without it, but burns will not.)
2. List drives:
   • wodim --devices — shows recognised burners with bus/lun and capabilities.
   • lsblk -o NAME,TYPE,RM,MODEL filtered to TYPE=rom.
3. Auto-detect default device: lsblk -nro NAME,TYPE | awk '$2=="rom"{print "/dev/"$1}' | head -1.
4. For each detected device (or the explicit one provided):
   • dvd+rw-mediainfo <device> — shows media type, capacity, blank/used status, write speeds.
   • Capture stderr for "no medium" cases and report cleanly as "tray empty / no disc".
5. Print a tidy summary table: device | model | media-loaded | media-type | capacity | blank?.

Output / side effects

• Stdout summary only. No files written.

Safety / constraints

• Read-only; safe to run any time.