keith wrote in
news:wrednU6KhdKZ4W7VRVnyvQA@bt.com:

> I am using HH (8.04), and have a strange problem. I can read DVDs
> with no problems, whether data files or a video. When I put in a CD,
> it doesn't appear to be recognised at all. places/computer shows the
> drive as CD-RW/DVD+/-RW Drive, with unknown type. Clicking this gives
> the error message "Unable to mount location - No media in drive".
> This occurs with both "home made" CDs (from another computer) and with
> commercial audio CDs.
>
> I can't find anything in help areas for a "half working" drive. All
> the checks for a non-working drive seem to suggest there are no
> problems with it.
>
> Any clues as to where I can start looking to diagnose the problem?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Keith
>


FWIW, probably the first thing I would do is disconnect the DVD cable
and then reconnect it.....maybe there is a logic line that isn't making
proper connection.

If that didn't clear up the problem, and if possible, install in and
check with another computer system.

Check fstab and permissions. Try using unit as root.

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:49:08 -0500, keith quoth:

> I am using HH (8.04), and have a strange problem. I can read DVDs with
> no problems, whether data files or a video. When I put in a CD, it
> doesn't appear to be recognised at all. places/computer shows the drive
> as CD-RW/DVD+/-RW Drive, with unknown type. Clicking this gives the
> error message "Unable to mount location - No media in drive". This
> occurs with both "home made" CDs (from another computer) and with
> commercial audio CDs.
>
> I can't find anything in help areas for a "half working" drive. All the
> checks for a non-working drive seem to suggest there are no problems with
> it.
>
> Any clues as to where I can start looking to diagnose the problem?

one of the first things I would do is put in a cd, open up a terminal and
enter the command 'dmesg'. if you haven't done this before, you will be
confused by the long set of messages but at the bottom will be some stuff
of interest. see if there is anything about /dev/sr0 or some other lines
with /dev.

if I found /dev/sr0 there, I would find or make a directory and mount that
sucker there. but getting ahead of ourselves.

does dmesg show anything interesting? what are the last 5 or so lines?

you might also run 'mount' and see what the system has mounted and where.

I think we can figure out mounting the drive though for audio, you don't
want to mount the cd, you want to play it. but let's see if we can mount
something.

Felmon

> I am using HH (8.04), and have a strange problem. I can read DVDs with
> no problems, whether data files or a video. When I put in a CD, it
> doesn't appear to be recognised at all.

Do you dual boot at all, and if so, does it work under the other OS ?

Most drives have two separate optical heads for CD and DVD, and it
could be that one has failed - it most commonly seems to affect the
DVD side first, but you might have had it the other way around :-}

Does it appear using any live CDs ?

* keith wrote in alt.os.linux.ubuntu:

> I am using HH (8.04), and have a strange problem. I can read DVDs
> with no problems, whether data files or a video. When I put in a CD,
> it doesn't appear to be recognised at all. places/computer shows the
> drive as CD-RW/DVD+/-RW Drive, with unknown type. Clicking this gives
> the error message "Unable to mount location - No media in drive".
> This occurs with both "home made" CDs (from another computer) and with
> commercial audio CDs.
>
> I can't find anything in help areas for a "half working" drive. All
> the checks for a non-working drive seem to suggest there are no
> problems with it.
>
> Any clues as to where I can start looking to diagnose the problem?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Keith

What about commercial NON Audio CD's (Like an old AOL CD, come on, youve
got to have one of those around!) or the Ubuntu Install CD?

--
David

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:06:58 -0400, Felmon wrote:

> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:49:08 -0500, keith quoth:
>
>> I am using HH (8.04), and have a strange problem. I can read DVDs with
>> no problems, whether data files or a video. When I put in a CD, it
>> doesn't appear to be recognised at all. places/computer shows the
>> drive as CD-RW/DVD+/-RW Drive, with unknown type. Clicking this gives
>> the error message "Unable to mount location - No media in drive". This
>> occurs with both "home made" CDs (from another computer) and with
>> commercial audio CDs.
>>
>> I can't find anything in help areas for a "half working" drive. All
>> the checks for a non-working drive seem to suggest there are no
>> problems with it.
>>
>> Any clues as to where I can start looking to diagnose the problem?
>
> one of the first things I would do is put in a cd, open up a terminal
> and enter the command 'dmesg'. if you haven't done this before, you will
> be confused by the long set of messages but at the bottom will be some
> stuff of interest. see if there is anything about /dev/sr0 or some other
> lines with /dev.
>
> if I found /dev/sr0 there, I would find or make a directory and mount
> that sucker there. but getting ahead of ourselves.
>
> does dmesg show anything interesting? what are the last 5 or so lines?
>
> you might also run 'mount' and see what the system has mounted and
> where.
>
> I think we can figure out mounting the drive though for audio, you don't
> want to mount the cd, you want to play it. but let's see if we can mount
> something.
>
> Felmon

Nothing with /dev at all! Last few line start handle_IRQ...;
Thread_simple...; do_irqd...; kthread+0.....; kthread+0....;
kernel_thread...:

(as an aside, is there a way of picking up text from a terminal window,
on the lines of cntl-c? Nothiing I try seems to work)

mount also doesn't show anything that looks like a removable media drive.

Keith

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:24:37 +0100, Colin Wilson wrote:

>> I am using HH (8.04), and have a strange problem. I can read DVDs with
>> no problems, whether data files or a video. When I put in a CD, it
>> doesn't appear to be recognised at all.
>
> Do you dual boot at all, and if so, does it work under the other OS ?
>
> Most drives have two separate optical heads for CD and DVD, and it could
> be that one has failed - it most commonly seems to affect the DVD side
> first, but you might have had it the other way around :-}
>
> Does it appear using any live CDs ?

No other system in the box! It doesn't seem to see any CD at all. I
didn't know that the drives used separate heads for DVD and CD - that
could be an explanation of the problem. I have another box with similar
hardware in it. I will try swapping the two drives and see whether the
Ubuntu box starts to sing again! 8-)

Ta!

Keith

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:55:19 +0000, SINNER wrote:


>
> What about commercial NON Audio CD's (Like an old AOL CD, come on, youve
> got to have one of those around!) or the Ubuntu Install CD?

I've tried all sorts of CD - non raise the slightest sign on
recognition! I'm afraid I don't have any AOL stuff - refuse to have it
in the house since they skinned me for a few hours connection back in
1993 (or so) - pre web days, when I got charged for connections to France
when the number I dialled was in UK! (Oh for the days of Lynx!)

Keith

In article ,
keith wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:06:58 -0400, Felmon wrote:
>
> > I think we can figure out mounting the drive though for audio, you don't
> > want to mount the cd, you want to play it. but let's see if we can mount
> > something.
>
> Nothing with /dev at all! Last few line start handle_IRQ...;
> Thread_simple...; do_irqd...; kthread+0.....; kthread+0....;
> kernel_thread...:
>
> (as an aside, is there a way of picking up text from a terminal window,
> on the lines of cntl-c? Nothiing I try seems to work)

With some terminal emulators, you can hold down shift and select the
text, to be stuck into an app of your choice. Double-click to select a
word, triple-click to select a line.

"tail -f /var/log/syslog" while you insert the disc may be useful. See
if you can manually mount the disc (no partitions, and remember it's
read-only).

--
-eben QebWenE01R@vTerYizUonI.nOetP royalty.mine.nu:81
LIBRA: A big promotion is just around the corner for someone
much more talented than you. Laughter is the very best medicine,
remember that when your appendix bursts next week. -- Weird Al

keith wrote in
news:wrednUmKhdK2U27VRVnyvQA@bt.com:

> (as an aside, is there a way of picking up text from a terminal window,
> on the lines of cntl-c? Nothiing I try seems to work)

just highlight the text you want to copy with your mouse. Then right click
and select copy.

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:39:39 -0500, keith quoth:

> Nothing with /dev at all! Last few line start handle_IRQ...;
> Thread_simple...; do_irqd...; kthread+0.....; kthread+0....;
> kernel_thread...:

then I don't know and it sounds like you should check for hardware
problems as Colin Wilson suggests.

he suggests an interesting point of failure - come to think of it, I may
have experienced the dvd failure mode once. wouldn't have occurred to me.

googling on "linux 'cannot read cds'" reveals a lot of hits (affecting
both Windows and Linux). one guy says, lapidarily, "able to read DVDs and
cannot read CDs? the first sign of the dying drive."

Felmon

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:24:37 +0100, Colin Wilson wrote:

>
> Most drives have two separate optical heads for CD and DVD, and it could
> be that one has failed - it most commonly seems to affect the DVD side
> first, but you might have had it the other way around :-}
>
> Does it appear using any live CDs ?

Forgot to check it with a live CD before I swapped the drives (always
used DVDs on this machine). However, your suggestion of a head failure
appears to be correct. Swapping in a known good DVD/CD drive has
resulted in being able to listen to music while I waste the hours
avoiding doing the household jobs I should be getting on with! 8-)

It's off to the component supply sites to order a new drive - I wonder
what other magic goodies I'll be tempted into whilst I'm there?

Many thanks to all who made suggestions as to how to solve the problem.
It's increased my knowledge of linux by another quantum step. I should
have known it wouldn't be the software - Ubuntu is far too reliable for
that!

Keith

In article ,
keith wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:36:46 -0400, Hactar wrote:
>
> >
> > "tail -f /var/log/syslog" while you insert the disc may be useful. See
> > if you can manually mount the disc (no partitions, and remember it's
> > read-only).
>
> syslog gives:

(once trimmed down to remove the common informationp)

sda is probably your hard drive and sdb is probably your CD-ROM.

> [ 1795.168009] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
> [ 1795.168050] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 312581808 512-byte hardware sectors (160042 MB)
> [ 1795.168073] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
> [ 1795.168079] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
> [ 1795.168116] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
> [ 1795.168153] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] 312581808 512-byte hardware sectors (160042 MB)
> [ 1795.168176] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
> [ 1795.168181] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
> [ 1795.168217] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA

^- time? -^ ^--------^ ^^^ ^-- message
SCSI disk friendly
device:bus:ID:LUN: name
ID 0 = master,
ID 1 = slave

So I don't know why it's reporting stuff about your hard drive, much
less why that data is the same as for your CD-ROM. I'm guessing that
in some config file you've got sda (or worse, both) where you should
have sdb. "find /etc -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep sda" and see if
any of those should obviously be sdb?

--
-eben QebWenE01R@vTerYizUonI.nOetP royalty.mine.nu:81
LIBRA: A big promotion is just around the corner for someone
much more talented than you. Laughter is the very best medicine,
remember that when your appendix bursts next week. -- Weird Al

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:49:08 -0500, keith wrote:

> I am using HH (8.04), and have a strange problem. I can read DVDs with
> no problems, whether data files or a video. When I put in a CD, it
> doesn't appear to be recognised at all. places/computer shows the drive
> as CD-RW/DVD+/-RW Drive, with unknown type. Clicking this gives the
> error message "Unable to mount location - No media in drive". This
> occurs with both "home made" CDs (from another computer) and with
> commercial audio CDs.
>
> I can't find anything in help areas for a "half working" drive. All the
> checks for a non-working drive seem to suggest there are no problems with
> it.
>
> Any clues as to where I can start looking to diagnose the problem?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Keith

My $0.02: Sounds like a hardware problem. Bite the bullet, invest $25 in
a new drive, and I bet it will work just fine.

--
MarkA
Keeper of Things Put There Only Just The Night Before
About eight o'clock