Stumbling block on road to going Linux-only, the dvdrw is very odd.

Neil Joseph Schelly neil at jenandneil.com
Mon Nov 19 11:59:22 EST 2007


One troubleshooting mechanism I'd give a shot...

Have you tried booting up with a Knoppix or Ubuntu or some other liveCD 
distro?  At least then, you can boot up and see if your DVD drive works there 
and identify to start whether it's a legitimate hardware issue or just some 
issue with the Mandriva distro kernel or something.
-N

On Monday 19 November 2007 11:43, Bob King wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> Having been (as most on this list) fed up with MS for a long time, I
> am finally getting off my butt and trying to switch to a Linux desktop
> full time. I have been listening to the distro conversations here as
> well as reviews in other places and had settled on Mandriva as a
> decent distro which had most of the multimedia funtionality and such
> with minimal work on my part. I had hoped to stick with updating
> packages with as little intervention from me as possible, but it would
> appear that is not an option.
>
> However, I have realized that there was a real problem with the system
> right after I plunked down the money for a subscription...
>
> I had posted this previously to Mandriva "experts", but they have been
> decidedly silent on this issue... I am hoping the hardware wizards
> here might have some helpful pointers. I tried googling around, but
> did not see too much directly relevant (although found some stuff
> about JMicron controllers that I suspect may be part of the issue)
>
> I have a Gigabyte Mobo (GA-P35-DS3R) with a Lite-on DVDRW
> (SOHW-1673S). I had previously run Fedora 7 on this machine, and it
> had no trouble with the drive, but was using the SCSI pseudo-driver.
> Mandriva idendifies the drive as an IDE drive (/dev/hda) but does not
> seem to be recognizing the drive completely as a functional cdrom.
>
> The control center shows the hardware as a DVDRW:
> --- begin include ---
> Identification
> Vendor: ‎Lite-On Technology Corp.
> Model: ‎DVDRW SOHW-1673S
> Media class: ‎cdrom
> .
> Bus identification
> Vendor ID: ‎0x0000 <-- This seems like a bad sign
> Device ID: ‎0x0000 <-- As does this
> Sub vendor ID: ‎0x0000
> Sub device ID: ‎0x0000
>
> Connection
> Bus: ‎ide
> Channel: ‎primary
>
> Device
> Old device file: ‎/dev/hda
>
> Misc
> Drive capacity: ‎burner DVD
> Disk controller: ‎0
> --- end include ---
>
> This started with the drive reporting that it had an audio CD in the
> drive when it was in fact empty. I then realized that the OS was
> having some real problems working with the drive.
>
> --- begin include ---
> [root at adsel etc]# wodim -prcap dev=/dev/hda
> Device type : not present Object based storage
> Version : 0
> Response Format: 10
> Capabilities :
> Device seems to be: unknown.
> --- end include ---
>
> lshal showed the following:
> ---begin include ---
> udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_empty_unknown'
> block.device = '/dev/hda' (string)
> block.is_volume = true (bool)
> block.major = 3 (0x3) (int)
> block.minor = 0 (0x0) (int)
> block.storage_device =
> '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_model_LITE_ON_DVDRW_SOHW_1673S'
> (string)
>
> info.capabilities = {'volume.disc', 'volume', 'block'} (string list)
> info.category = 'volume' (string)
> info.interfaces = {'org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume',
> 'org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume'} (string list)
>
> info.parent =
> '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_model_LITE_ON_DVDRW_SOHW_1673S'
> (string)
>
> info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_empty_unknown' (string)
> linux.hotplug_type = 3 (0x3) (int)
> linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/block/hda/fakevolume' (string)
> org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_argnames = {'extra_options',
> 'extra_options'} (string list)
>
> org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_execpaths = {'hal-storage-eject',
> 'hal-storage-eject'} (string list)
>
> org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_names = {'Eject', 'Eject'} (string
> list)
>
> org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_signatures = {'as', 'as'} (string
> list)
>
> storage.model = '' (string)
> volume.block_size = 0 (0x0) (int)
> volume.disc.has_audio = false (bool)
> volume.disc.has_data = false (bool)
> volume.disc.is_appendable = false (bool)
> volume.disc.is_blank = true (bool)
> volume.disc.is_rewritable = false (bool)
> volume.disc.type = 'unknown' (string)
> volume.fstype = '' (string)
> volume.fsusage = '' (string)
> volume.fsversion = '' (string)
> volume.is_disc = true (bool)
> volume.is_mounted = false (bool)
> volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
> volume.is_partition = false (bool)
> volume.label = '' (string)
> volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
> volume.mount_point = '' (string)
> volume.num_blocks = 0 (0x0) (int)
> volume.size = 0 (0x0) (uint64)
> volume.uuid = '' (string)
> --- end include ---
>
> I have tried googling for some help (and searching the Mandriva
> forums) but do not see anything relevant. I did find some information
> regarding trouble with JMicron IDE controllers that might be
> relevant,so I am including that here as well:
>
> --- begin include ---
> $ lspci | grep IDE
> 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 4
> port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
> 00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) 2 port
> SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
> 03:00.1 IDE interface: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMicron 20360/20363
> AHCI Controller (rev 02)
>
> I had run Mint 3.1 and the previously mentioned Fedora 7 on this same
> platform, and they had no trouble with the drive.
>
> Any ideas on how I can get Mandriva.2008 to recoginize this drive
> correctly?
>
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