Optical Disc Drive detected but doesn't work

English Hardware
#1

OpenSUSE 11.2 x86_64
KDE SC 4.4.3
Linux 2.6.34-rc6-29-desktop (from KERNEL:HEAD)
HAL 0.5.13-4.2.1
udisks 1.0.0.git20100224-11.1
ASRock G43Twins-FullHD LGA 775 Intel G43 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Samsung 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223Q (connected via SATA. detected as: /dev/sr0)

Discs are read by the drive when inserted (they are spun and the LED light on the drive lights up) but nothing happens after that.

I disconnected the SATA cable and tried a new SATA cable on a different SATA port and also tried a different SATA power cable but that did not fix anything.

I’m thinking this is a kernel or software configuration problem.

Could someone please help me troubleshoot the issue?

#2

Maybe a hardware problem? I have a Samsung SH-223Q (hwinfo calls it an TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223Q) and it “just works”. This was true for openSUSE-11.1 and 11.2 (all with nominal Kernels).

#3

Did you try booting with a liveCD to see if this is a kernel issue with your custom HEAD kernel ?

#4

After inserting the disk, watch the kernel messages in the output of dmesg. It could be that the disc was scanned but no notification sent to the desktop. In which case you would have to manually mount.

#5

echoes-, could I ask what type of disk you are trying to read? Is this a Data/Program disk, or CD Music disk or Movie DVD? The type disk makes a difference as well as the action you expect to perform, such as start a music player (ie: /dev/cdrom), play a movie (ie: /dev/dvd) or open up a file manager to look at the disk contents (data/program disk ie: /dev/sr0). Please advise as to the type of disks your have tried to look at. Does any type of disk provide device notification?

Thank You,

#6

or…could it be that the changes to the system are related to the erronious behaviour.
Enter a disk, open a terminal window and do


dmesg | tail -20
#7

Sorry everyone, I forgot about this thread! Thanks for the responses!

yes mine worked with 11.1 & 11.2. something has caused that to change but i don’t know what.

i haven’t been able to yet because i left my live disc elsewhere and haven’t yet got it back.

sorry if i wasn’t clear but by “discs” i meant discs of all kinds.
i can’t open a file manager to inspect disc conetents, that is one of the first things i tried.
no disc of any kind produces a device notification in kde or a file manager.

the only output related to the drive is this:

[172011.729553] sr0: CDROM not ready.  Make sure there is a disc in the drive.
[172011.731777] sr0: CDROM not ready.  Make sure there is a disc in the drive.
[172572.962592] sr0: CDROM not ready.  Make sure there is a disc in the drive.
[172572.964821] sr0: CDROM not ready.  Make sure there is a disc in the drive.

here is the hwinfo output for my drive (notice it says there is no medium present but i do have a data dvd inserted):

39: SCSI 200.0: 10602 CD-ROM (DVD)
  [Created at block.247]
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_model_CDDVDW_SH_S223Q
  Unique ID: KD9E.2G0LOL1oioD
  Parent ID: w7Y8.BubEU8siXjD
  SysFS ID: /class/block/sr0
  SysFS BusID: 2:0:0:0
  SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0
  Hardware Class: cdrom
  Model: "TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223Q"
  Vendor: "TSSTcorp"
  Device: "CDDVDW SH-S223Q"
  Revision: "SB00"
  Driver: "ahci", "sr"
  Driver Modules: "ahci"
  Device File: /dev/sr0 (/dev/sg0)
  Device Files: /dev/sr0, /dev/block/11:0, /dev/scd0, /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0, /dev/cdrom2, /dev/cdrw2, /dev/dvd2, /dev/dvdrw2
  Device Number: block 11:0 (char 21:0)
  Features: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD+DL, DVDRAM
  Drive status: no medium
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #28 (SATA controller)
  Drive Speed: 48
#8

more output:

ls -l /dev/sr*
brw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2010-05-08 15:06 /dev/sr0
#9

Are you able to make a bootable flash key with some Linux rescue distro, e.g. systemrescuecd, to see if the drive will work there? It’s not unknown for optical drives to fail suddenly.

#10

i’d rather just wait to get my live disc back which i can do tomorrow.

more info:

might be worth mentioning that my fstab file contains no references to the drive (which i know is normal now that HAL or udisks manages drives).

more output:

cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
  Vendor: TSSTcorp Model: CDDVDW SH-S223Q  Rev: SB00
  Type:   CD-ROM                           ANSI  SCSI revision: 05
#11

Samsung 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223Q (connected via SATA. detected as: /dev/sr0)

Discs are read by the drive when inserted (they are spun and the LED light on the drive lights up) but nothing happens after that.

This part of your info looks ok. A couple of questions for further clarification: Do you have a KDE device notifier active for your disk detection? Does the device icon appear within Dolphin’s places panel for your optical drive? (Disregard this if I’m on the wrong track here). :slight_smile:

You may be aware of this behaviour already (so please ignore if it doesn’t apply to you) but data CD/DVD discs will mount when (the relevant icon) is clicked on, altough I understand KDE 4.4 can be configured to automount this media (via the notifier)

#12

Yes, it is a real possibility that despite the normal drive info appearing ok (interface electronics working), you may have a failure at the ‘business end’ eg the laser or pickup electronics.

#13

i do have a device notifier but it never pop ups with notifications for discs.

i suppose my drive could have just “died” or malfunctioned. there are two ways i can test this:
one is to get my live disc back and try to boot from that.
second is get a new drive and although the best ones are very cheap (in the USA at least) i can’t get one immediately so this method of testing the hypothesis would have to wait.

#14

Well, for now, you could try bringing up the ‘Places’ panel from Dolphin menu (if not already displayed), and watch for disc icon after a CD/DVD inserted. The dmesg output should also reveal activity…

#15

i already mentioned that nothing happens in the file manager (dolphin) and i already posted the dmesg output.

#16

I didn’t see your reply to my first post, hence the second post with further thoughts (if that makes sense). :slight_smile:

Anyway, based on your info

i do have a device notifier but it never pop ups with notifications for discs.

its apparent that either the discs you’ve tried to read are faulty, (or if you know this not to be the case), then the optical drive is toast. (As oldcpu has already suggested).

#17

well i can lay this mystery to rest: the drive is malfunctioning.
i tried to boot with my kde four live disc which i know is a “good” disc and the disc was detected/read but the system would not boot from the disc.
i’m just going to buy a new drive when i get the chance.