Hi,

I have an old Dell that had Windows 2000 on it. I installed from CD Ubuntu 6.06 on it. After the install I couldn't read from the CD drive.

I have tried booting from the CD drive and that fails. Note that the Bios has a boot order that lists the CD drive, so initially I thought this isn't a Linux issue because it should attempt to read the CD, but it is too big a coincidence to happen straight after an install.

I've checked the cables inside and everything appears to be okay. I've tried different CDs and they all fail.

As I have a working copy of Ubuntu, is there anything I can try from the operating system to see if it works?

Thank you for any suggestions.

...it should attempt to read the CD, if everything before the CD in the list is unreadable, otherwise it will just read the first readable thing (and nothing else).

All Ubuntu CDs, or various different distros (inc, say, Knoppix, which is usually pretty good on hardware detection)?

The only thing that comes to mind is that if there is a chipset plus an add-on chip that interfaces to certain devices (maybe adds e-sata plus a couple of non-raid sata ports, or, perhaps more likely at this vintage, adds extra pata ports) you can find that the basic chipset ports work, but the add-on ones don't, without extra magic (ie, needs extra drivers to be loaded). If this seems to be the case, there may be some mileage in re-arranging which ports you use. Or, fighting with the drivers...