Sabayon GNU/Linux 3.4F S-ATA DVD/RW Optical Drive Problem

[ScottAS]

All

I am encountering a problem in relation to my S-ATA Optical Drive; a Sony NEC Optiarc DVD/RW AD-7170 S. Having replaced a damaged S-ATA cable in my Desktop PC last week, I decided to begin transferring my archived data from DVD+R media onto my Hard Disk as of last night. I inserted my first DVD+R in my S-ATA Optical Drive and awaited its automatic mounting and accompanying dialogue box; however it it didn't occur. I removed my media and once again re-inserted it however the media was neither mounted, nor was it detected by my Optical Drive.

I realise that I may be encountering a hardware problem with my device, although having successfully installed my Operating System with it, and having been assured that there is not a problem with the laser detecting the dye used within my DVD+R media, of which it is a PHILIPS brand, I am certain that it is a software error of which is causing my problem. As I am not certain as to how to begin researching my problem, I hope that the Sabayon GNU/Linux Community will be able to provide me with information in order for myself to provide relevant information required.

In addition to the fact that my S-ATA DVD/RW Optical Drive refuses to mount media, it is also causing a severe degradation in boot performance; without the device being connected to my Motherboard, my Desktop PC boots successfully within 20 seconds, however whilst the device is connected to my Motherboard, my Desktop PC boots successfully within 2 minutes and 30 seconds; I would be most interested to know if there is a problem with a device driver which, as a result, is causing my severe performance degradation.

Device : ATAPI CDROM
Vendor : Optiarc DVD/RW AD-7170 S
LBA Mode : Supported
PIO Mode : 4
Async DMA : DMA MultiWord DMA-2
Ultra DMA : Ultra DMA-4



Scott

[WarraWarra]

Hi Scott.
Skip anything you have tried or know.

Sounds like the driver used for the dvd drive is causing the bugs not sure how though might be trying to access the eide ata connector on the motherboard as well as the sata at the same time.
You have the SATA dvd and then the bottom of the post you have a ata eide dvd .
Is this 2 different dvd drives or 1 using a sata to eide/ata bridge device ? I have lost you here .

Mounting dvd manually:
If you need to mount the dvd then as root in terminal:

Code: Select all

example:
# su
passwd:
# cd /mnt
# ls
# mount /dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom

This = su = login as super user , change dorectory to /mnt , ls = list same as windows dir , then mount the dev known as sata 0 to mount cdrom.

This way it should mount the dvd and then just browse to /mnt/cdrom and access it.

If you made the dvd disks on the old busted dvd sata cable connection then they might not want to be read or have difficulty being read if the sata cable you are talking about is or was connected to the dvd drive.

If you have any other Os say windows / ubuntu or something and the disk mount in there and or can be read then likely it is driver related and not dvd disk itself. Nero and Linux is having a few bugs and is being fixed by nero . Also if in windows just copy the files of if you can or any other Os then once back in SL you can copy it over.

Automounting:
/etc/fstab
and
/etc/mtab
is the 2 that needs to have the dvd drive listed and then it should automount , no idea if it has to be in both or only one of this files.

These are working one's on a old linux box / Rpm linux / pclinux I am about to format and can be used as guide to fix /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab but verify them against wiki's / other posts here for correct info.

Code: Select all

/etc/fstab
none    /proc   proc    defaults        0 0
none    /dev/pts        devpts  mode=0620       0 0
none    /proc/bus/usb   usbfs   defaults        0 0

# /dev/sda1, size=256977, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (primary)
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 noatime 1 2

# /dev/sda2, size=8000370, type=130: Linux swap (primary)
/dev/sda2 swap swap defaults 0 0

# /dev/sda3, size=108952830, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (primary)
/dev/sda3 / ext3 commit=30,noatime 0 1

# /dev/sdb1, size=251111952, type=7: NTFS (primary)
/dev/sdb1       /mnt/win_c      ntfs    user,exec,ro,noauto,nls=utf8,umask=0    0 0

# /dev/sdb2, size=239111460, type=7: NTFS (primary)
/dev/sdb2       /mnt/win_d      ntfs    user,exec,ro,noauto,nls=utf8,umask=0    0 0

# cdrom: SONY DVD+-RW DW-Q58A
/dev/sr0        /mnt/cdrom      auto    user,exec,ro,noauto     0 0

Code: Select all

/etc/mtab
dev/sda3 / ext3 rw,noatime,commit=30 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=0620 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw 0 0
none /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw 0 0
sunrpc /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs rpc_pipefs rw 0 0
nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd nfsd rw 0 0

Hopefully something here will lead to a fix for you. Also try the wiki on top of this page as it has how-to pages that can help or try gentoo.org forums / wiki as well.
Will see if I can find more info.

[ScottAS]

WarraWarra

Thank you for your reply to my problem. I have since removed my S-ATA DVD/RW pending a resolution, however I am able to answer your questions. I have disabled both my Primary and Secondary IDE Controller within my Motherboard's BIOS and had done so previous to physically installing the device, therefore it will give an explanation as to my listing. My Motherboard is an AsRock 939S756-M Motherboard and hosts 3 IDE connections alongside 2 S-ATA 1.5GB/s connections, only one of which is now in use. My Motherboard's S-ATA Controller is enabled and operating in Non-RAID mode.

My listing is one device only, therefore I am to assume that an IDE/S-ATA Bridge is in use in order the communicate with my Motherboard's SouthBridge Chipset, an SiS 756 model. In regard to your query about the use of my device to burn media, my DVD+R media was burned using another device and therefore I am safe to assume that my media is not causing additional problems; each DVD+R was also verified using an MD5 Checksum in order to verify integrity, therefore I am also safe to assume that I do not own corrupt data or media. Each DVD+R is also physically clean, and to the naked eye, does not bare damage.

I gawped upon reading your code listing, I'm not confident nor proficient using a GNU/Linux Command Line Interface just now and I may read it a number of times to ensure that I don't cause myself additional problems. I don't like Command Line Interfaces whatsoever however I'm keen to find a resolution to my problem; I wish to thank you for your aid thus far, I appreciate it very much so.



Scott

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... 56-M&s=939 - AsRock Inc. - AsRock 939S756-M

[ScottAS]

WarraWarra

I have found no resolution to my problem thus far however I have also encountered my problem within openSUSE GNU/Linux 10.3 x86-64 in that it would also not automount my DVD+R media, therefore I am certain that it is a problem related to device drivers used within each Operating System that is the cause of my problem.

I have not attempted your temporary solution thus far however I will do so just now. I am considering purchasing a Hard Disk in order to transfer my data via my Laptop PC onto it utliziing an Akasa Integral External Hard Disk Enclosure however it is not an ideal solution.

I am considering submitting my problem to the Sabayon GNU/Linux BugZilla Database however I am not certain as to how to describe my problem, and, as it may be a problem with my particular S-ATA DVD/RW Optical Drive and therefore would not be easily reproducable.

Scott

[chsims1]

Just thought I'd add that I'm using the same drive with SL 3.4f without any problems.

This may or may not be related, but I have had similar problems in the past with earlier versions of Sabayon (with different drives) & I have also seen posts by other people experiencing similar things. I sorted it previously by mounting the drive explicitly in fstab, & in one case by reinstallation of Sabayon. Is this a fundamental problem with the Sabayon set up?? I don't know enough about Linux/SL to answer this, but there do seem to be a lot of examples of drives not been recognised for no apparent reason.

[jaykar]

from what i can tell there fundamental problems in the way Linux in general addresses SATA.

it may not be related, but i had issues recently with the Kernel not recognising my hard disks correctly.

the problem turned out to be down to a setting in the BIOS for the SATA controller.

In my BIOS the SATA controller can be set to 1 of 3 modes, SATA, RAID or AHCI, assuming your not using RAID it will be set to SATA or AHCI, my problem was caused by it being set to SATA and the Kernel trying to operate in AHCI, switching the BIOS setting to AHCI resolved my issue.

No idea if this is related to your problem, but it might be worth investigating.

[ScottAS]

JayKar

Thank you for your reply. My Motherboard utilizes an IDE/S-ATA Bridge in order to communicate with my Hard Disk, as I confirmed today whilst reading my POST menu and noting that my S-ATA Hard Disk was being recognised as an IDE Hard Disk however I can also confirm that my Hard Disk is operating in Non-RAID mode. My Motherboard's S-ATA Controller is also operating in Non-RAID mode however I am only given the ability to use my Hard Disk in either RAID or Non-RAID mode; my BIOS is up-to-date also.

I cannot understand as to why my S-ATA DVD/RW Optical Drive is not being recognized correctly and having realised that it is a problem within other Linux Operating Systems I've attempted to use it within is unbelievable, especially considering the fact that Greg Kroah-Hartmann has begun developing device drivers to be used within the Linux Kernel for what is claimed to be support for every single device in the World.



Scott