knoba Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Hi~ Happy new year to all! Thanks goto; Linux, Mandriva, Mods and rockers. I love it! Iv'e just upgraded my server and desktop boxes from 10.1 to 2006. (Also brothers desktop p4 and sisters laptop P3). Both my machines worked very well with 10.1, change is good! The desktop install went no probs at all, the server however is giving me some resistance. Its main job is to act as an ADSL firewall/router for the Mandrake/Win2k LAN. For the server; i did a clean install, 2006 dvd installed no probs at all. Tried to add thunderbird, unrar from dvd, drive spat out draw, i put the disc in and it spat the disc back out (disgusted) had to cancell after several re-attempts. Updated from mirrors and stripped out redundant services and apps. Tried to access user backup data on cd-rw disc and no joy for 2nd time running. Uninstalled Kat. So, i cant seem to access my dvd rom on my 2006 server now, except for the install disc. Strange! The thing is the reader is trying to access other discs, spinning up and down like they are badly scratched, which is not so. Also the LED on the drive stays on instead of bursting during a read op. Things improved significantly after uninstalling kat, instead of locking the gui up, mandriva now shows no files on the discs at all (DVD & CD variants), except for the DVD+R DVD5 install disc. Things I've tried so far: Considered if the 107Watt PSu was man enough? (pre KAT) Searched here for problems of this nature; nothing solid - uninstalled kat. Checked "Force no apic" Changed mount points and various settings Checked and rechecked fstab manually - ditto. Been to creatives' site for dvd specs; dvd5, cd-r + cd-rw all ok Tried same discs in another Mandriva desktop machine; ok Been through the BIOS ah-gain. Searched here for variating key words; cdrom, dvdrom, freezing, lockup etc. Swapped dvd drive for other working drives; same. Renewed ide cables; same. Searched google; something about 64bit archs. Ran through errata; Thanks for link! Smacked self 'round head with kipper; hmm, tasty! Server specs: Toshiba eqium desktop -onbaord ati and sound 128Mb RAM PII 250 Creative dvd reader realtek NIC Cyclone Nic USB keyboard Serial 3w mouse iiyama vm pro 502 Any suggestions, links, tips welcome please... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 If the media is a problem, you can always use urpmi to download additional from the internet. However, it would still prompt for your CD/DVD media before accessing the internet, so, what can be done is to remove the CD Media from the urpmi database, so that it is empty. This can be done with: urpmi.removemedia -a as it shows, remove all media. The other option, if you have the GUI installed, is to go into Software Media Manager (System/Configuration/Packaging within KDE) and make sure all media is deselected. That way, you can always enable it again later if you wish. So, now that the database is empty of configured media, you can scroll to the top of this page, and find a link for "easyurpmi". This you can then choose your sources for main, contrib, jpackage, plf-free, plf-nonfree and updates. I'd make sure you select all, I always do. Then choose, compressed index, to save downloading huge 25MB indexes, and it will then display a load of text links. Copy and paste these into a terminal session to add the urpmi sources to the system. Once done, you can then install the apps you've wanted to, without having to use the media, which could be damaged/bad burn or something along those lines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Another thing worth checking, is if you don't have one, purchase a CD drive cleaning kit. It could be that if you have had the drive for a long time, it might need cleaning! Sometimes happens..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 (edited) Excuse me, but did you install KDE in a 128MB RAM PII 250 which is intended to act as firewall/ router and expect from it to work? No X at all and webmin would more than suffice! Factly, after installing you can even stop harddrake and remove the videocard, to spare a few watts... Using a cleaning kit for a Crapative drive isn't a good idea: It won't fix anything, and anyway a new DVD-ROM drive is sometimes cheaper than the cleaning kit... Plus that a 107W PSU (nominal, true wattage may be much smaller) is fine for spinning one harddisk and three small-sized fans- nothing more than that. Edited January 27, 2006 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoba Posted January 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Hi~ Nice one! First off, I've read alot of your past posts over the year "ianw1974" and they are always upbeat and edcational, I think you're a good example to the community. thanks for that! :) Your solution is a good way to circumvent the system not being able to read any cd/dvd rom media, and I will indeed alter my methods as per your suggestions if I cannot find a more direct solution. URPMI done! The problem is; I don't exactly know what the problem is; hardware, software. I would kind of like my systems' drive to read any other discs though (aside from the install disc which reads fine). Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoba Posted January 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Hmmm~ Maybe youre right "scarecrow", but my 10.1 flew on that same system no probs. Im laughing now, ive seen you laugh! I guess it's alot to ask from that system. Thanks for your time guys, i'll go get some new circuits. Kind regards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Can't really say this is a good comparison but I'll use it anyway :P I had a stereo system, that jittered the CD's and would never play them. Although some would. There was the CD cleaning kit, with fluid etc, cost about £10 in the UK to buy. I used it, and then had no problems with using the CD player after that. Chances are it could be this. For sure, I'm not definite. You seem to be able to read one disk, but nothing else. I'm assuming the other disks are perfectly readable in other machines. This would lead me to believe that if the disks can be read in other machines, that your CD drive is a little problematic. Since it can read one disk, it doesn't look like it is a data cable problem, as it would either work or not. But then, you can always double check that the IDE/SCSI cable is connected OK as a precaution. If the disks aren't readable in another machine, then I'd say those disks are stuffed. Although seems a little odd if this is the case, since you were able to install from them initially! Many thanks for the vote of confidence, very much appreciated :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Did you try working with another window manager loaded? I'm almost sure the CD-ROm does not work because the system is completely out of resources (including wattage), but it wouldn't harm play a little around it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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