Hi everyone, I'm really green, so pardon me if this is in a FAQ, but I did search the archives for this problem to no avail.
I have an NEC IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM. It says "CDR-250" on the case, and the BIOS reports "NEC ATAPI CDROM: 260" (or something similar to that). I'm having trouble getting it to be recognized by Debian Linux ("Hamm" release, version 2.0.2 on CD from Linux Systems Labs). Using a DOS boot floppy with the NEC driver and MSCDEX, I am able to read the CD, which convinces me that it is not a drive or cable problem. It is jumpered as a "slave" on the primary IDE controller (on the motherboard). Examining the dmesg output I found the following, which would seem to be the problem: ide: i82371 PIIX (Triton) on PCI bus 0 function 57 ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007 ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f hda: SAMSUNG VG38404A (8.40GB), 8056MB w/490kB Cache, CHS=1027/255/63 hdb: NEC CD-ROM DRIVE:260, ATAPI cdrom or floppy?, assuming FLOPPY drive ide-floppy: Packet size is not 12 bytes long ide-floppy: hdb: not supported by this version of ide-floppy ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077 [complete dmesg output after message] Apparently the OS is making an incorrect assumption about the identity of the device and then failing because of it. (Ever heard of an IDE floppy? I've certainly never seen one). Anyway, after booting, there is no /dev/hdb device to mount. I don't know what I can do about this. Surely there's some way to "nudge" Debian in the right direction? (I have installed the basic part of the OS from floppy disks, so it is possible to tinker with the configuration files). ------------- As an alternative, I have a Creative Labs "Infra-1800" CD-ROM which is a 12X with a gimmicky infra-red remote. I figured it would be better to leave that on the Windows machine. It's also an "ATAPI IDE CD-ROM." I would expect it to have the same problem, but I'll probably try it if all else fails. -------------- Many thanks! Terry Hancock ************************************ ** Complete DMESG Listing Follows ** ************************************ Console: 16 point font, 400 scans Console: colour VGA+ 80x25, 1 virtual console (max 63) pcibios_init : BIOS32 Service Directory structure at 0x000fabc0 pcibios_init : BIOS32 Service Directory entry at 0xfb040 pcibios_init : PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb070 Probing PCI hardware. Calibrating delay loop.. ok - 80.08 BogoMIPS Memory: 6020k/8192k available (1124k kernel code, 384k reserved, 664k data) This processor honours the WP bit even when in supervisor mode. Good. Swansea University Computer Society NET3.035 for Linux 2.0 NET3: Unix domain sockets 0.13 for Linux NET3.035. Swansea University Computer Society TCP/IP for NET3.034 IP Protocols: IGMP, ICMP, UDP, TCP VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_5.6.0 initialized Checking 386/387 coupling... Ok, fpu using exception 16 error reporting. Checking 'hlt' instruction... Ok. Linux version 2.0.34 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc version 2.7.2.3) #2 Thu Jul 9 10:57:48 EST 1998 Starting kswapd v 1.4.2.2 Real Time Clock Driver v1.09 tpqic02: Runtime config, $Revision: 0.4.1.5 $, $Date: 1994/10/29 02:46:13 $ tpqic02: DMA buffers: 20 blocks, at address 0x277800 (0x2777d8) Ramdisk driver initialized : 16 ramdisks of 4096K size loop: registered device at major 7 ide: i82371 PIIX (Triton) on PCI bus 0 function 57 ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007 ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f hda: SAMSUNG VG38404A (8.40GB), 8056MB w/490kB Cache, CHS=1027/255/63 hdb: NEC CD-ROM DRIVE:260, ATAPI cdrom or floppy?, assuming FLOPPY drive ide-floppy: Packet size is not 12 bytes long ide-floppy: hdb: not supported by this version of ide-floppy ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077 md driver 0.35 MAX_MD_DEV=4, MAX_REAL=8 Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card! ppa: Version 1.42 ppa: Probing port 03bc ppa: Probing port 0378 ppa: SPP port present ppa: PS/2 bidirectional port present ppa: Probing port 0278 scsi : 0 hosts. scsi : detected total. Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 hda9 hda10 > VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly. Adding Swap: 130748k swap-space (priority -1) Module inserted $Id: cdrom.c,v 0.8 1996/08/10 10:52:11 david Exp $ Serial driver version 4.13 with no serial options enabled tty00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A tty01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A tty03 at 0x02e8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A lp1 at 0x0378, (polling) VFS: Disk change detected on device 02:00