I have similar issues with my HP dvd740 external USB burner: I can burn DVDs without any problem, but burning CDs fails catastrophically, usually during the fixating phase. Since I'm using a USB hub, I can see that the node is being turned off by the kernel and I have to power cycle the burner before it's recognized as a device again.
I suspect that this may not be a firewire issue, but a cdrecord / kernel 2.6.8 issue. Running as suid root is no longer sufficient--you have to be logged in as root (not su'd root) to send any SCSI commands that aren't whitelisted in the kernel. (I apologize for any inaccuracies here --but the Schilling-Linux feud is long standing and I don't have time to google through all the garbage posted on this subject to ensure I'm making a more accurate statement.) -- k3b fails to burn cd with firewire device https://launchpad.net/bugs/28207 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
