OpneSUSE 11.1 cant mount cd-rw/dvd-rw

when I try to mount /dev/cdrom I get this:

mount: /dev/sr0: unknown device

To look where the symlink is going I do this:

ls -l /dev/ | grep cdrom

And get:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Jun 18 07:54 cdrom -> sr0

So I look at what cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info and I get:

CD-ROM information, Id: cdrom.c 3.20 2003/12/17

drive name: sr0
drive speed: 24
drive # of slots: 1
Can close tray: 1
Can open tray: 1
Can lock tray: 1
Can change speed: 1
Can select disk: 0
Can read multisession: 1
Can read MCN: 1
Reports media changed: 1
Can play audio: 1
Can write CD-R: 1
Can write CD-RW: 1
Can read DVD: 1
Can write DVD-R: 1
Can write DVD-RAM: 0
Can read MRW: 1
Can write MRW: 1
Can write RAM: 1




Here is the output from dmesg:

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
udevd version 128 started
scsi 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
Linux agpgart interface v0.103
intel_rng: FWH not detected
input: PC Speaker as /devices/platform/pcspkr/input/input2
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 24x/24x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
input: Power Button (FF) as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXPWRBN:00/input/input3
agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: Intel 865 Chipset
agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: AGP aperture is 128M @ 0xe8000000
i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.3: PCI INT B -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
input: Power Button (CM) as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0C0C:00/input/input4
iTCO_vendor_support: vendor-support=0
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
iTCO_wdt: Intel TCO WatchDog Timer Driver v1.03 (30-Apr-2008)
iTCO_wdt: failed to reset NO_REBOOT flag, reboot disabled by hardware
iTCO_wdt: No card detected
ACPI: Power Button (CM) [VBTN]
Intel ICH 0000:00:1f.5: PCI INT B -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17

Here is what lies at the bottom of the dmesg when I put in a cd:

sr0: CDROM not ready yet.
sr0: CDROM not ready yet.
sr0: CDROM not ready yet.
sr0: CDROM not ready yet.
sr0: CDROM not ready yet.
sr0: CDROM not ready yet.

ad infinitum

No fstab entries were in place for my cdrom. So I put some in:

/dev/sr0 /media/cdrom auto noauto,user,sync 0 0

And I have done various plays on that line like tryin to put in iso9660 and such.
Running ps -ef | grep hald gets me this:

103 1728 1 0 Jun18 ? 00:00:01 /usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes
root 1794 1728 0 Jun18 ? 00:00:00 hald-runner
root 1805 1794 0 Jun18 ? 00:00:00 hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event0 /dev/input/event4 /dev/input/event3
root 1831 1794 0 Jun18 ? 00:00:01 hald-addon-storage: no polling on /dev/fd0 because it is explicitlydisabled
103 1836 1794 0 Jun18 ? 00:00:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpid socket /var/run/acpid.socket
root 1838 1794 0 Jun18 ? 00:00:34 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr0 (every 2 sec)
root 7698 7572 0 23:23 pts/2 00:00:00 grep hald

I have tried using different disk and I have googled my brains out. I have been at this for a couple days now trying a combination of things and I'm gettin no where. The LED on the burner lights up and the drive will spin, but I cant get it to mount and I cant get any application to recongnize the drive. Any ideas?

Why are you trying to mount it? SUSE hasn't required mounting manually in years. Just put a disk in, and with KDE or Gnome, it'll pop up and ask what you want to do.

If that doesn't work open up Yast2, go to hardware, and the CD / DVD drives, and make sure the drive works under Linux.

Hi,

What I usually do is just mount it as a virtual image to a DVD-ROM and boot it from there. It is far easier and much more secure that way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kevomate66

Hi,

What I usually do is just mount it as a virtual image to a DVD-ROM and boot it from there. It is far easier and much more secure that way.

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He didn't say anything about booting, and how is this more secure exactly?

Gore:
I tried putting in several disk and nothing comes up. I went under hardware in YAST but theres no cdrom icon, so I went into hardware info and it found all the specs for my cdrom. At the bottom it says notready:yes So I'm not sure if that has something to do with it. Regardless I'm still not able to access any disk that I put in my cdrom. Any other ideas?

Try a different CD rom!

Already workin on that. But theres really no reason why I should have to resort to that. The system is recongnizing it fine, it's a configuration problem. I'm still googlin tryin to find something but I'm still open to suggestions.

Something interesting, if I do a media check via YAST on the cd-rom it says "Cannot read medium in the drive /dev/sr0." Even though there is no disk in the drive. Whhaaat....?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lionhearted2005

Something interesting, if I do a media check via YAST on the cd-rom it says "Cannot read medium in the drive /dev/sr0." Even though there is no disk in the drive. Whhaaat....?

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Umm, Media check as in... "CD-ROM" Media... It's trying to check the CD-ROM for problems.

Hi there lion~,

Perhaps you just have a simple hardware failure? I have seen numerous cases of hardware components being recognised by the system but they just won't work.

I would normally connect them to another machine to confirm that they were dead, but in this case I would suggest going into the BIOS and making the CD/DVD the first boot option.

Insert another distros boot CD and reboot. If it works then you know your hardware is basically OK. You can even do this with an old Windows CD or a bootable applications CD.

If it won't boot then the only other thing I think you might try is flashing the CD/DVDs firmware.

From a research viewpoint try Googling for the make and model of CD/DVD and searching in the results for Open Suse. It just might be some sort of hardware compatibility issue?

The media check error is a little misleading I suspect. It is looking to check the media but cannot actually see the drive......so it cannot see the media in it or detect that there isn't any. I guess it gives you the closest error message it can find?

1. could be a hardware failure.... If possible, update the bios on the dvd drive. $15 dollar investment could fix that problem.
2. Update the kernel source and recompile. Could be possible you updated the system that's not compatible with your current configuration.
3. maybe /dev/cdrom needs to be linked to the correct device. This old site explains what I'm trying to say.

http://aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/1827.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nihil

If it won't boot then the only other thing I think you might try is flashing the CD/DVDs firmware.

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Great minds think alike.

OK, lets step back a minute.

First, we have very little information on the computer:
Is this a desktop ( easier ) or a laptop?
Is this an IDE, SATA, or scuzzy ( SCSI ) drive ( what type hardware chips involved? )

We don't even know if it ever worked under SUSE ( he could have done a network install )
or if it worked then suddenly stopped working.

What I do know is the problems described are typical of an optical drive gone bad.
( I have a stack of them here in my dungeon! )

I have seen it on SUSE, Fedora, Centos, etc.


Hopefully it is a desktop, so the easiest thing to do is try another drive ( borrow one if you have to )

If it is a laptop it is going to be a little more costly and harder to swap out.

Either way you can try as nihil said and try to boot to a windows CD disk.

As gore said, you do not need to add anything to fstab, HAL will take care of mounting.


You can try to gently clean the drive interior and optical lens, but usually if there is hair and dust inside you will get random errors, not complete failure ( you may sometimes get the random errors as the drive is starting to fail. )

As for the Media Check message with no media in, typical, not a factor here.


So, what I am saying,

Quote:

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Try a different CD rom [drive] !

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nihil, see what happens when I try to keep my posts short?
I just wind up posting again!

Gore: I know its trying to check the cdrom for problems, thats what I wanted it to do. It was just strange that it said cannot read medium when there was no medium in the cdrom.

nihil: Setting the cdrom as the first boot option was something I did when I first installed suse on this machine and the boot disc still loads correctly. so thats why I'm saying its not a problem with the cdrom itself so much as a config problem. But I dont know where to go to reconfigure the cdrom. I started googling the model of the cdrom and suse a few days ago and while the suse site says that my particular model is not supported the site also has not been updated in that regard for sometime I would think AND the other models listed from pioneer are almost exaclty like mine. Though almost doesnt always cut it I still say its a config problem and any thoughts on where I can change some settings for my cdrom would be nice because I cant find a dman thing on google that helps out me in this particular situation.

Sorry, forgot to put the hardware info here like iknownot asked for.

dell optiplex desktop 2.8ghz
1.2gb pc3200 ddr
120gb sata hdd
floppy drive
radeon agp dual video'
pioneer cd-rw/dvd-rw dvr-103 (scsi)

it was a iso boot disc that did the install. no suse has never been on this machine before

linen0ise: the /dev/cdrom is pointed at sr0 like it should be. and its not a hw failure because i can still boot from the install disc and recompileing the kerenel is probably not useful since this is opensuse 11.1 and was just installed a few weeks ago.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lionhearted2005

Gore: I know its trying to check the cdrom for problems, thats what I wanted it to do. It was just strange that it said cannot read medium when there was no medium in the cdrom.

nihil: Setting the cdrom as the first boot option was something I did when I first installed suse on this machine and the boot disc still loads correctly. so thats why I'm saying its not a problem with the cdrom itself so much as a config problem. But I dont know where to go to reconfigure the cdrom. I started googling the model of the cdrom and suse a few days ago and while the suse site says that my particular model is not supported the site also has not been updated in that regard for sometime I would think AND the other models listed from pioneer are almost exaclty like mine. Though almost doesnt always cut it I still say its a config problem and any thoughts on where I can change some settings for my cdrom would be nice because I cant find a dman thing on google that helps out me in this particular situation.

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You're missing my point again:

It's not checking the CD-ROM DRIVE for problems, it's trying to check the CD-ROM DISK you don't have in there which is why you're getting errors. A CD-ROM DISK is a "media" just as a Tape you'd put in a tape drive is a MEDIA.

That's why it's giving you errors. Put a CD-ROM in an it can check the CD-ROM, but that option you're trying doesn't check the drive.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lionhearted2005

Sorry, forgot to put the hardware info here like iknownot asked for.

dell optiplex desktop 2.8ghz
1.2gb pc3200 ddr
120gb sata hdd
floppy drive
radeon agp dual video'
pioneer cd-rw/dvd-rw dvr-103 (scsi)

it was a iso boot disc that did the install. no suse has never been on this machine before

linen0ise: the /dev/cdrom is pointed at sr0 like it should be. and its not a hw failure because i can still boot from the install disc and recompileing the kerenel is probably not useful since this is opensuse 11.1 and was just installed a few weeks ago.

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OK, now we have something to sort of work with. Now, on one of my machines, I have 3 Drives on it for CDs and DVDs. One of them is a pain in the ass to get working in Windows, but on Linux, doesn't matter which one, this is how I would put a disk in:

Take CD, put in drive, wait a little bit, pop up saying what do you want to do.

Now, for burning an ISO image to disk, I'd simply CLICK on the ISO, open in KDE, it pops up K3B for me, checks the MD5 sum, for me, and then click burn, and it does it. No configuring, nothing

Now, to look at a basic CD-ROM, I'd put that in a drive, and again, it just asks you. Playing with Fstab is no longer needed in new versions, except for Slackware and sometimes Debian, but not SUSE or Mandriva or the other RPM distros.

First, don't be fooled by the scsi bus that SUSE is identifying: all IDE drives are now listed as scsi devices on many Linux distros..

That dvr-103 is an older unit.
Don't know if it will help, but there was a firmware update awhile back ( don't know if it will help!! )

Current version should be 2.0 ??
DVD-R/RW Computer Drives and DVD Recorders Download Page

To find out what version you have, use Yast ( click on the Computer icon in lower left corner, open Yast, then open Hardware Information )

Scroll down to the CD-ROM, then expand it.

It should show you your current firmware version ( Revision ) as well as your driver.

The site cautions you, if you have an OEM version of the drive to go to the distributor of the drive ( in your case Dell ) for the update. You will probably have to use the alternative method to update if needed, as they don't have Linux updates.


It is strange that the same media and drive you used to install SUSE works from boot, but will not work once the system is loaded.

Just for fun, do
lsmod cdrom
lsmod <driver found in Yast>

Then boot to the install disk, select Rescue System, login as root and repeat the above commands to see if the same drivers ( modules ) are being loaded.
( Ctl-Alt-Del to reboot )

If the drivers are the same then it should work ( unless you changed something in permissions?)


Try Computer-More Applications-Authorizations ( under Utilities )
scroll down to hal, storage, and see what the the Authorizations are ( Anyone-no, Console-no, Active Console-yes )

Also under More Applications you can try ( under System ) File Management
check the media tab, and make sure “Browse media when inserted” is checked.


I still think the drive may be going, and given the limited media for that drive you still might be better off getting a new one ( provided permissions are correct. )

.

Hi there lion~,

Quote:

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nihil: Setting the cdrom as the first boot option was something I did when I first installed suse on this machine and the boot disc still loads correctly. so thats why I'm saying its not a problem with the cdrom itself so much as a config problem. But I dont know where to go to reconfigure the cdrom.

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Thanks for that...............I wanted to eliminate a pure physical hardware problem, as they can happen at any time and confuse issues as a result.

Strictly speaking, I do not think that you have a configuration or settings issue as there shouldn't be any.............it should just work.

If this were a Windows environment I would say that the bootable CD is loading generic drivers that are not being loaded with the OS. Or, the OS installation is in some way corrupted. Have you tried a reinstall of Suse?

The first thing I would do is ensure that the Dell BIOS/Firmware are at the latest version.

Your CD/DVD seems to be earlier than your PC, so looking for a firmware update from the manufacturer's site might also be useful. I say that because Dell tend to "do their own thing".

Unfortunately, your drive is rather old, so compatibility is likely to be an
issue. I haven't looked myself, but you might be able to find generic Linux software?

EDIT:

Just out of curiosity, what happens if you boot from the HDD without any USB devices attached, then attach them?