Install New CD-ROM Drive
 

When I installed Linux (RH 9) initially, I had to borrow a CD-ROM drive from a friend, as the installer was having trouble recognizing mine. The drive I'm using now is a 4x, versus the 40x I'd like to be using. Is there any reason that I couldn't just take out the 4x and put in the 40x and expect it to work? I know that the 40x is ATAPI compatible, but it's a different brand. Here's what I have:

4x (Installed): Goldstar (SoundBlaster?) GCD-R540B
40x (Desired!): Generic, BCD E520C

I have had troubles before in Win9x-XP with the 40x not being recognized unless I take out the SCSI card (Adaptec AHA-2930B) that my CD-R drive is attached to, but that didn't work for installing Linux.

I hate to bunch questions together, but this is relevant, so here goes--is there any way I can optimize CD-ROM drive performance in Linux? I know that in Windows, I had trouble with my 40x running pretty slow--I'm not sure why but I know that it ran on MS generic drivers. Never got that figured out. Probably just specific to the generic, low-quality drive.

Thanks for any answers, this forum has been of quite some help.

marc

As long as it is in the same position on the IDE chain, you should have no troubles.

You might play around with hdparm for the drive, but I have never managed to get a CDROM drive to perform any better than with the defaults.

# Red Hat links
Red Hat Linux Manuals
Get your mp3 support here
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
Easier software management: apt4rpm - Red Carpet
Red Hat 8.0 Tips & Tricks

# Red Hat 7.3 down configuration commands
setup leads to several configuration tools

# Red Hat 7.3 up configuration commands
Configure soundcard:
redhat-config-soundcard
Configure X server:
redhat-config-xfree86
Configure network:
redhat-config-network
Manage software:
redhat-config-packages
Red Hat 9.0 Package Management Tool

# Handling NTFS
New Technology FileSystem (NTFS) HOWTOs
Linux NTFS project