Baslinux mailing list

[Stephen Clement <s.clement AT sympatico.ca>]

sindi keesan wrote:

> I somehow ended up with three CD-ROM drives that won't read the CD-R 
> that I managed to make of SW4.0 on the 8X burner after the 2X stopped 
> burning disks that anything could read.  (It helped to ignore 
> everyone's instructions and put the shiny side UP not down, as there 
> is no label or writing on these cheap blanks.  Blue side with numbers 
> goes down).
>
> One appears to have died since last used and won't read any disk in 
> DOS or linux.  40X.  All the other drives 24X or faster read CD-Rs if 
> they read CD-ROMS.  It acts a bit differently if there is no disk (it 
> tells you that) or some disk (different message, has trouble reading it).

It all depends when it comes to CD-R's with old drives. I have a CD 
drive that is 12x and almost a decade old, and it reads disks burned by 
my Plextor Premium (very expensive, although definitly worth it), when I 
burn using Verbatim CD's. Any other burned CD doesn't work. Might want 
to try with different burners, and different CD's if possible. My one CD 
drive wouldn't read "Smart Buy" CD's, even though the CD drive was brand 
new, although it read Verbatim disks burned by the same burner. With 
burning CD's and old CD drives, it's totally hit or miss.

> One probably came unplugged when my partner was plugging back in the 
> floppy drive that came unplugged when we were putting back the 32MB 
> SIMMs because the 64MB SIMMs only work in certain boards (this one 
> found them as 16MB).  It won't read anything at all in DOS or linux.  
> We know this is a good drive because we used it to replace one that 
> only read CD-ROMs half the time.  (The joys of using equipment people 
> put at the curb!).  I also knew the floppy cable had come unplugged 
> because we had to replace the first floppy drive and I put in one that 
> tested perfect with floppymeter.

Heh, I had a situation like this just recently. Know exactly what you 
mean, the curb stuff isn't exactly great.

> The third one works in DOS but NOT in BL2 so I did a search on various 
> of the error messages that I got during boot (there were lots of them) 
> and found a few postings in kernel archives list with the exact same 
> error messages and reference to a patch.  Using Kernel 2.5.43 fixed 
> the problem for the poster, as did the patch.  They also installed a 
> newer version of cdrecord (as recommended also by Christof).

Maybe just try the new version of cdrecord?

> Is 2.5.43 this a stable kernel?  Would it be better to hunt up a 2.6 
> kernel of some sort, presumably the smallest one I can find as I would 
> use it only for this one CD burner.  Is there some really small 2.6 
> kernel that would have support for CD-ROM modules and scsi emulation 
> so I can use it only once in a while to copy CDs?

No, 2.5.43 is not a stable kernel. Odd 2.x version numbers are unstable, 
even ones are stable (I'm talking the middle number, so 2.4.21 would be 
stable but 2.3.2 would not be.) About small 2.6 kernels: the 2.6 kernel 
series can't fit on 1 floppy. Period.

> I would also need matching modules for this kernel (sr_mod, sg, 
> ide-cd, ide-scsi, scsi_mod).  Does uClibc have a 2.6 kernel with modules?

Don't think so.

> The burner in question is 4x-4x-32x and came in a Compaq case with 
> dead board, cpu around 700MHz, and working DVD-ROM drive.  It might 
> postdate BL2 (1999).  Finally a reason to use a newer kernel.

Any idea what brand the burner is?

> I think Steven said it was not possible to compile a 2.4 kernel as 
> small as the 2.2.16 that he compiled for BL2 or BL2 so 2.6 will 
> probably be even larger no matter how small people managed to compile 
> it, or is there some really minimal precompiled 2.6 kernel to which 
> you can add the CD-burning modules?

2.4 can be fit one disk (very carefully), but not with the stuff you're 
looking at compiled in.

> keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
> SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org 

Thanks,

Stephen Clement