[sf-lug] i586 ThinkPad CD-ROM problems

Alex Kleider a_kleider at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 12 14:19:41 PST 2007


Rick chided me (justifiably of course) for not providing more specifics
re my problems installing Mandriva. I've done some more experimenting
and am beginning to worry that the CD-Rom may be dying although there
is also some evidence to the contrary.
Currently I'm running DSL (Damn Small Linux) with out problems BUT
would like to switch to a more conventional distro. I AM able using the
i586 ThinkPad running DSL to mount and read a CD burned on another
(ubuntu) computer. For example I read the README file on the Mandriva
CD this way. Pretty good evidence I thought that the CD-ROM drive works
fine.
BUT:
When doing an install (I've tried both Debian and Mandriva with similar
results) the process stalls. 

during Debian install:
it proceeds as expected untill the "Detecting Hardware" part-
it fails to find the CD Rom drive and offers to let me submit one on a
floppy.
"No common CD ROM drive was detected"
with the following reports on the display of another (virtual)
terminal:

ide-cd: cmd 0x5a timed out
hdc : lost interrupt
hdc: ATAPI 24X CD ROM drive 128 k Cache
Uniform CD-Rom driver Revisioin: 3.20
hdc: lost interrupt

Mandriva starts with a "Mandriva screen"; notifies that booting is
beginning and then that Kernel is loading; and then goes to another
Mandriva screen and just sits there indefinitely;
Ctl-Alt- F2 ---> another terminal with messages similar to those seen
during Debian's install attempts:

hdc : lost interrupt          #this appears many many times
ide-cd : cmd 0x5a timed out

*looking for media adaptors
*PCI : device 1069 5229 ffff ffff is "ALi Corporatioin IM5229 IDE",
driver is alim15x3
*have to insmod alim15x3
*warning: unable to get module filename for ide core
ide-cd : cmd 0x28 timed out
hdc: lost interrupt
/sbin/init: error while loading shared library invalid ELF header
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

All of this makes me think that the CD-Rom is failing BUT if that is
true why does it read a CD normally using DSL Linux? 

Perhaps there is enough information here for someone to immediately
recognize the cause of the problem; if not, I'm ready to suggest to my
friend who owns this computer to pitch it into the trash! (But I'd
rather conquer the problem instead!)

Thanks               alex




alex at kleider.net


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