aside:
grep is case sensitive!
you should use '-i' switch here (ignore case), to get more results.

not only case sensitive, but you also missed cdrom and sr0 (cd-rom and cdrom are not equal)

Ember1205, Peter, Pan 64, ondoho, thanks for your help, perseverance and gentle tutoring.

I will try a data disk, but as every line produced by dmesg contains sr0 there is probably no point in searching further.

I've invested in a new optical drive, picked from the Linux hardware list.

So, unless you suddenly come upon the solution, I suggest we leave this here.

Closed but not solved.

Thanks again everyone.

Regards

Chris

Final final.

Case didn't matter in this case!

Data cd couldn't be examined either. Ah well!

so return back to my first post in this thread: it is not connected properly or the device is damaged.

Didn't he say that he used the drive to install the distro in the first place? If so, my guess is that it's actually an ATAPI/PATA drive or similar and the OS is either not loading drivers for it or loading the wrong ones. I've seen PATA drives show up as SCSI plenty of times and it always comes down to drivers and device ID.

I asked dmesg log about the device recognition and initialization....

Yes Ember1205. This was a fully functioning win machine. I installed SuseLinux leap 42.1 using a dvd. That is all I have ever used it for.

Pan 64, forgive me for not fully understanding.

I have published multiple entries from dmesg here.

I don't understand quite what dmesg is or what it reports. Should I reboot and then use dmesg again? Would it be different? Does it create a new report from boot each time?

Through the thousand of lines I see in dmesg, sr0 appears in every line.

Tell me precisely what you need me to do to get a meaningful output from dmesg?

dmesg Is a diagnostic tool that shows you almost all of the screen output that the machine generates at boot time. It's a handy way to go back through the boot logs and read what things the machine is reporting about device detection, activation, and use during the initial startup phase of the machine.

Thanks. So if I reboot, I get new information. How do I capture that and post it here? I can get it into a text file but how do I put a text file here? Stick it up as code?

dmesg > file.txt will capture the content. When replying, go to "Advanced" mode and choose "Manage Attachments". As long as the file ends with .txt, you can attach it.

Thanks again ember 1205

Your file of 366.3 KB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 256.0 KB for this filetype.

Mmmmm.

I'll start again and truncate it.

Well, here it is, though to be honest, I can't see it.

I guess I just trust that what is in the Attach files box is actually attached!

Attached Files

dmesg.txt (70.7 KB, 30 views)

I see

and

Two things you can try:

- Change the mapping of the CDROM in the BIOS of the machine. If you're currently configuring the ATAPI drive as an IDE device, disable that.

- Load the ide-generic module