CDROM getting destoryed

skyrat · n00b Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 10

Hi, I'm a n00b to gentoo and linux in general, so bare with me. Is there any danger in stopping emerge using Ctrl C then halting the PC?

I've intalled gentoo and been mid way through emerging xfree twice when I have had to get into windows for work. Both times I used Ctrl C to abort the process then used halt to power down the PC. The board is AT (or is it ATX either way it doesn't automatically powerdown) so after the "powering down" message i used the reset button.

The first time, when bios checked the IDE connections it failed to find anything. Turned out the cdrom was dead and the harddrive didnt like being "master with slave" without a slave. I was gutted that the cdrom was dead but atleast everything on the harddrive was ok.

Second time I exitted the emerge process (xfree again) and rebooted in the same fashion, the replacement cdrom was also dead.

This is not a tend i want to continue so does anyone have any idea whats going on and how to stop it?

Secondly, is there a way to leave an emerge and pick it up again later after a reboot?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Malakin · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2003 6:41 pm Post subject:

This sounds like either a bios problem or a cdrom/hd jumper problem. Did you try completely turning off the computer and then turning it back on to see if that would make the cdrom work? (not just restarting it) Either way you should check the jumpers on the drives and make sure the hard drive is master and the cdrom is slave or get another ide cable and make the cdrom master on the 2nd ide controller. Some hard drives have a "master" and a "master with a slave" setting, some of the jumper charts are pretty confusing.

skyrat · n00b Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 10

I've been using the system with w2k for over 6months (with the first cdrom) and other OSs before that, checked jumper settings, tried different cables, tried using it as master on secondary IDE instead of slave to harddrive (with correct jumper settings) even tried in a different computer. Both cdroms are dead but were working fine before

mozard · n00b Joined: 11 May 2003 Posts: 14

Seems like you have a similar problem that many of us do!

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=53201&highlight=

Is yours a Dell?

Wonders if the administrators are taking note of this - seems to be like a big problem..

skyrat · n00b Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 10

It's not a dell but the drive was an LG drive like many of those in the link you directed me too, and it failed with the LiveCD inside. You might want to check if your dell drives are simply LG drives repackaged. If so we might have found the combination, LG drive + LiveCD/AA game CD. Might help developers recreate the problem and figure out how to fix it

patan · n00b Joined: 19 Feb 2003 Posts: 66

Does your CDROM work after you've powered off and restarted your machine?

I've seen this happening while installing gentoo, for me it's been related to not unmounting the CD after the installation is done. If I umount there's no problem.

skyrat · n00b Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 10

No, its still dead. Won't even power up with only the power lead connected and no IDE cable to eject the disk. I'm hoping that this is because the firmware has been trashed and just needs to be re-installed

I've been looking for the firmware hex file to try and do this. Also tried the LG firmware update software (which creates a bootable disk with a command line exe file) but even this failed to spot the drive was present.

I found a windows application for updating the flash directly through the IDE interface (with the hex file) but i haven't tried it yet

mozard · n00b Joined: 11 May 2003 Posts: 14