I've been battling weird problems with my CD-RW drive for months now.
It would work fine for days or weeks or months, then fail in weird ways,
for days or weeks at a stretch.
Last time it worked was after installing and compiling 2.4.18 kernel,
(still failed), and then under "ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support", under "IDE,
ATA and ATAPI Block devices", tried the "Use multi mode by default" Yes
option in the kernel, and was suddenly able to blank a disc again and
write a disc.
Then I tried to write a 2nd one and it failed again, like this:
Mar 24 16:38:07 posh kernel: SCSI bus is being reset for host 0 channel 0.
Mar 24 16:38:07 posh kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid 5940, scsi0,
channel 0, id 0, lun 0 Test Unit Ready 00 00 00 00 00
Mar 24 16:38:07 posh kernel: SCSI host 0 abort (pid 5940) timed out - resetting
Other errors over the months have included:
o Occasional timeouts on scsi commands.
o scsi errors happening so fast that the generic scsi sub-system
flooded /var/log/messages with errors, unstoppably, which was
slowly filling the disc. Only a reboot would ever stop that
one.
o Generic scsi module lock-ups.
o HDD activity light on permanently, despite no disc activity.
o Kernel crashes. (/sbin/hdparm -d1 -X34 /dev/hdc and
/sbin/hdparm -k1 /dev/hdc helped with this a LOT, but not 100%.)
o Dead CD-RW and DVDROM drives - stone dead. No power even during
boot.
Some of the PC sysadmins at work said that they thought that my system,
which includes 3 hard disc drives, was under-powered with just a 250W
power supply.
The store where I bought it said that a simple test (of my apparently
dead Cd-RW and DVDROM), would be to unplug the power from the 3 drives,
and power back up and see if the CD-RW and DVDROM drives got power. I
did that, and they did. (Interestingly, after plugging everything back
together, *everything* is now working again. But I don't knpow how long
it will stay like that.)
So, it seems that a system with Pentium III 833MHz, CD-RW, DVDROM,
floppy, graphics card, sound card, 4-IDE controller motherboard, 3
HDDs, is slightly more than can be reliably run from a 250W power
supply. I.e., things will all work if you're lucky, but it's all just
running at the edge of its capabilities, and you can get power on some
busses dropping just enough to make various bits of hardware fail in
weird ways.
This may even explain why I could never get the system to work when I
plugged in the 4th HDD, and why the problem only seems to be shared by
a few other people on the internet.
I'll be getting a 350W power supply this week sometime, and crossing my
fingers that this is the real answer.
luke
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