Linux doesn't want me to use CDs?
 

Hola.

I've been having some real bad luck with cdrom drives in Linux. I just purchased a new drive [Philips DVDRW] and it's giving me the same errors as my old one [BenQ DVDRW]. Here's the error messages I've been getting with several LiveCDs.

Slax:
ash: can't access tty; job control turned off
SantaFe:
mount: Mounting /dev/cdrom on /cdrom failed: No such file or directory
PcLinuxOS:
Error: Unable to Mount the LiveCD
/initrd/bin/ash: can't access tty; job control turned off

So... help? If you can't help, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd post the manufacturer and possibly the model number of your current optical drive that works with Linux. Thanks a bunch.

Do you have more than one CD and/or DVD drive?
Is your CD/DVD drive an IDE ATAPI or is it USB or SCSI?

I have a couple of computers with Sony DRU 5xx DVD drives that work fine. One CD/DVD drive per computer. I can boot live CDs. Also my Toshiba Satellite notebook computer can boot live CDs.

I've only got one IDE drive [the Philips] hooked up. I've tried setting the jumper to both master and slave - no difference. It's the only IDE drive in my system.

Is your motherboard BIOS set to boot from CD/DVD as the first boot device?

Yes...

The LiveCD starts up, it starts loading modules and whatever, then it quits out with that error message.

Yes. Sorry. I forgot the details in the first post. I have no idea about the messages concerning the tty/job control. It looks like I wasted your time. I'm sorry about that.

No way man, thanks. Hey, now I know that Sony DVD drives are compatible!

Anyone? Just a slight bump here, I really don't want to have to RMA this drive.

I have no idea about the tty commands, but the mount failure means that either the directory /cdrom is not defined (I wouldn't expect it to be since hanging a device off the root of the file system isn't standard behavior) or /dev/cdrom is not defined.

Make sure /dev/cdrom IS defined and, if it isn't, figure out what your liveCD is calling the cdrom drive (could be anything...). This will be in /dev and will be associated with the physical device connection for your cdrom.

Once you figure this out, you can manually mount the drive.

I've tried two more LiveCDs. More errors.

LFS:
Couldn't find an LFS CD in the drive!
[it says this, waits a few seconds, says it again, then shuts down the computer]
CentOS:
[no error message, it just hangs at the welcome screen]

I tried mounting the drive in PCLinuxOS, and found some fun errors.
First of all, I scrolled up in the loading process and found this listed at the end:
Probing SCSI devices: [LOADED]
No ide channel found
[OK]
Searching for the loop image: /dev/sda1
[DONE]
I typed in mount:
/dev/root.old on /init type ext2 (rw,nogrpid)
none on...
/dev/shm on / type tmpfs (rw)
none on...
none on...
none on...
none on...
[those 'none on...' listed directories after them]

So I tried to mount something. Anything:
Cannot read /etc/fstab: No such file or directory

Ouch.

I'm glad that you feel that way.

I read your following posts. Having so many distros fail to boot I would think about getting a new DVD or CD internal drive. I've had to purchase hardware because Linux didn't like what I already had. That doesn't happen too often these days but it may be the solution here.

You can get internal Sony drives for under US$100 on the Internet. I've tried a bunch of brands including Plextor. People seem to like Plextor but I couldn't get the thing to work.

Let us know what you end up doing and if it works. :)

I always used LG and i dont think it will change.
No problems, full compability :)

have u tried the same drive in some other compi?
Maybe its a problem with ur MoBo?

shaman, I don't have another computer to try the drive on, but I didn't think about it being a problem with the motherboard. Is there a way I can test to see if Linux doesn't like the ide port itself?

*adds LG to the list of compatible drives* Thanks!

There really needs to be some kind of hardware compatibility list, where you can find out what other people have tested and found to work or not work.

There are Hardware COmpatability lists on several vendors sites such as redhat and Suse..

Google is also great for searhing out linux compatability and issues with hardware.

and someone pointed out this site the other day, they do hardware reviews and testing for Linux compatability.. http://www.phoronix.com/

multiple distros, multiple drives I would be looking at the motherboard to locate your problem..

Resurrecting thread... [DONE]

I RMA'd my Philips drive yesterday and I'm back to my old BenQ. Today I found a new BIOS update on Intel's site. I flashed it. I also did a random [lucky?] search for ide problems in Linux and found a parameter. I decided to waste a few minutes and see if Linux would work.

So I almost got CentOS to run. Well, it ran. There seems to be two boot menus I get whenever I use the CentOS LiveCD. The text is the same, but sometimes I get a screen where it shows the CentOS logo on top. Logo or no logo, it happens at random. It is also random whether the screen freezes right there or I can continue booting. Wierd.

Anyways, I got the nice pretty logo screen this time. I entered these parameters:
linux irqprobe all-generic-ide acpi=off
It ran through loading stuff for about five minutes. Then, it asked me to answer YES or NO a few dozen times to loading modules. I clicked yes for every one of them. Amazingly, another 3-4 minutes later [god this takes forever to load], I was presented with a graphical log in screen. I log in. CentOS is working! Well, uh, almost. My mouse doesn't work...

So, what do these parameters mean? Why does my DVD drive not work without it?