[sf-lug] i586 ThinkPad CD-ROM problems

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Kristian Erik Hermansen (kristian.hermansen at gmail.com):
> On 12 Nov 2007 17:35:28 -0500, Blake Haggerty
> <Blake.Haggerty at sapphire.com> wrote:
> > I was running into this same problem with a puppy Linux Install on a
> > friends older Sony Vaio Laptop. The CD Rom would constantly fail on
> > install/sometimes wouldn't work at all. I tried booting puppy Linux
> > off of the USB stick  and when Puppy was up and running I could read
> > off the CD no problem to an extent; until I had it doing something
> > rather labor intensive and then it too would fail again.
> 
> Do you think it might be due to the fact that the compressed
> file-system on the CD?  I would bet on that scenario.  More important
> data that has potential for corruption could cause this issue...

If it's the same type of VAIO outboard CD drive that my old laptop has,
then no.  The obstacle is that its ATA interface must be addressed on a
non-standard I/O base address that doesn't usually get autoprobed
correctly.  So, you pass 

    ide="0x180,0x386" 

to the kernel, at boot time, to inform it of the correct I/O port.