User:Gordon/Optical Drive Testing Script

Optical drive testing is currently a time consuming, error prone manual process that relies too much on human judgement and doesn't yield enough information about the drives being tested.

I propose to write a script and make a specification for labels such that drives are better tested, better identified and labeled, and that a muckety-muck within Free Geek can easily update which drives are to be rejected due to insufficient capabilities merely by changing the options to the script.

Requirements

• The script must correctly identify CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM+CD-RW (combo), DVD +/- RW and CD-RW drives. I will leave DVD-RAM out.
• The script must test read functionality from known-good CD-ROMs for CD capable drives.
• The script must test read functionality from known-good DVD-ROMs for DVD capable drives.
• The script must test read functionality on both the inner and outer surfaces of a known-good disc in order to rule out laser sled malfunctions.
• The script must test and verify write functionality on a known-good CD-RW disc for CD write capable drives. We assume that the ability to successfully write to CD-RW (high laser power) indicates the ability to successfully write to CD-R.
  • If using sessions, the script must erase CD-RWs when they fill up with test sessions to enable their reuse.
• The script must test and verify DVD-RW write functionality on a known-good DVD-RW disc for DVD write capable drives. We assume that the ability to successfully write to DVD-RW (high laser power) indicates the ability to successfully write to DVD-R.
  • If using sessions, the script must erase DVD-RWs when they fill up with test sessions to enable their reuse.

Questionable requirements

• I believe that DVD+R/RW drives which are not capable of DVD-R/RW are a very small minority. In my (dated) research, DVD-R/RW is slightly more widely compatible with various equipment than DVD+R/RW, so I propose testing only with DVD-R/RW and assuming this indicates DVD+R/RW functionality will also work, since the same physical hardware is involved; I further propose rejecting drives that are not capable of DVD-R/RW (i.e. DVD+R/RW-only drives).