CDROMS Not Reading Certain CDs

[Duncan MacGregor]

On May 24, 2005 10:46 am, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 07:44:00PM -0400, Howard Gibson wrote:
> >    My computer came with an ATAPI CD-ROM which has worked perfectly to
> > date.  Since then, I have added a CD-RW, a Yamaha CDRW6416S, running from
> > a SCSI card.  CD recording works fine.  It reads most commercial CDs
> > without problems.  It does not read its own recorded CDs, although my
> > CD-ROM works fine.
> >
> >    I am now hacking with a second hand PIII/733, and I am having possibly
> > the same problem.  I can boot Fedora_2 from the Linux Bible, but then the
> > program announces it cannot find the Fedora Core CD in any of my CDROM
> > drives.  My old Red Hat_8 CD seems to work fine.  My CD-RW will not read
> > the Fedora_2 CD either.
> >
> >    The only thing I can find in common about the two CD_ROMs is that
> > neither is connected to a sound card.  Does this make sense to anyone?
>
> Is sr_mod loaded?  Are you using /dev/scd0 when trying to mount the scsi
> cd writer?
>
> It is also possible the drive is broken (I have seen writers that could
> burn but not read in the past due to hardware failure.)
>
> Lennart Sorensen
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I think Lennart is right, and the laser in the drive is deteriorating. My 
first HP CD-R/W drive ($400), used in Windoze,  got progressively more cranky 
about the disks it would read or recognize. At first everything worked, then 
it didn't like coloured disks, then it didn't like CDRWs, and ultimately it 
failed completely.
 
Throughout the warranty period, HP said it was a software problem, and sent me 
to Adaptec (now Roxio), who sent out a stream of updates and patches that 
never made a no difference.  (There was even much superstitious talk about 
CDR colours on the net.)

Your problems are much more easily caused by progressive hardware failure, 
then by software.

In the end, HP said it was a failure of the laser, and too bad I didn't figure 
it in time. HP, LG, Samsung, and  NEC all make great drives that run like a 
train under Linux. Drives do  die, though. Any computer store usually has a 
pile of dead drives. 

New DVD-RW drives are about 70 bucks now. Don't bother with a CD-RW drive.
(The DVD-RW  reads and writes CD as well as DVD media.)
--
Duncan MacGregor --Toronto --
--
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