CD/DVD drive not recognized.

[Nigel Henry]

On Monday 08 October 2007 05:44, Simon Slater wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-10-07 at 11:30 -0400, Jacques B. wrote:
> > On 10/7/07, Simon Slater <pyevet at aapt.net.au> wrote:
> > >         I have an Acer Extensa 5220 with a Slimtype DVD A DS8A1P CD/DVD
> > > drive. After installing Fedora 7 this drive is not found by any
> > > application. Will it be one of the /dev/sda devices?  I'm not sure
> > > where to start with this one, googling didn't come up with anything
> > > useful.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Regards
> > > Simon
> >
> > If it's an IDE device (typically CD/DVD drives are) it will be a
> > /dev/hd? device.  Where it sits on the IDE chain will dictate if it's
> > hda, hdb, hdc, or hdd.  The primary/master drive on the first IDE
> > chain is hda.  The secondary/slave drive is hdb.  The primary/master
> > on the second IDE chain (assuming your motherboard has 2 because some
> > newer ones don't) is hdc, and the secondary/slave on the 2nd IDE chain
> > is hdd.
> >
> > If it's an external USB/firewire drive then it will be /dev/sd?.
> >
> > Type the following to find out:
> >
> > dmesg | grep dvd
> > (you could also try dmesg | grep cd
> > or dmesg | grep hd[a-z]
> > or dmesg | grep sd[a-z]
> > or other possible grep expressions such as the manufacturer of your
> > device).
> >
> > It should show up in there.  If it doesn't, it likely wasn't
> > recognized by Fedora.
> >
> > If it comes up, have a look to see how it was recognized.
> >
> > There are other ways to look for it.  lspci if a pci device.  lsusb if
> > a USB device.  And others probably have yet other suggestions.  I was
> > first taught dmesg and have found it invaluable for such
> > troubleshooting issues.
> >
> > You could also check your BIOS to make sure it is picking it up.
> > Although I'm gathering it is seeing you were likely able to boot your
> > Fedora install DVD from it to install it to your hard drive in the
> > first place.
> >
> > Jacques B.
>
> dmesg | grep dvd yields nothing.
> dmesg | grep cd gives lines for ?hci_hcd which is all USB stuff I think.
> dmesg | grep sd output is:
> [simon at Acer ~]$ dmesg | grep sd
> SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
> sda: Write Protect is off
> sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
> SCSI device sda: write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't
> support DPO or FUA
> SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
> sda: Write Protect is off
> sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
> SCSI device sda: write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't
> support DPO or FUA
>  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 sda6 >
> sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
> sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
> sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
> sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
> sdhci: SDHCI controller found at 0000:0f:06.3 [104c:803c] (rev 0)
> EXT3 FS on sda5, internal journal
> SELinux: initialized (dev sda5, type ext3), uses xattr
> sd 0:0:0:0: freeze
> sdhci 0000:0f:06.3: freeze
> sdhci 0000:0f:06.3: LATE freeze
> sdhci 0000:0f:06.3: EARLY resume
> sdhci 0000:0f:06.3: resuming
> sd 0:0:0:0: resuming
> SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
> sda: Write Protect is off
> sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
> SCSI device sda: write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't
> support DPO or FUA
> SCSI device sdb: 506880 512-byte hdwr sectors (260 MB)
> sdb: Write Protect is off
> sdb: Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
> sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
> SCSI device sdb: 506880 512-byte hdwr sectors (260 MB)
> sdb: Write Protect is off
> sdb: Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
> sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
>  sdb: unknown partition table
> sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
> sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
> SELinux: initialized (dev sdb, type vfat), uses genfs_contexts
> [simon at Acer ~]$ dmesg | grep hd
> SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
> SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
> SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
> SCSI device sdb: 506880 512-byte hdwr sectors (260 MB)
> SCSI device sdb: 506880 512-byte hdwr sectors (260 MB)
>
> This is with a DVD in the drive.  Without a DVD in the drive /dev/sdb
> goes.  Even with a disc in the drive, however, in CD Player for
> example the box in preferences to select the device is greyed out.
> Sound juicer "... could not find any CD-ROM drives to read.".  Totem has
> eject and play/pause greyed out when a DVD is in the drive and the open
> dialogue has no option to point to /dev/sdb.
>
>
> --
> Regards
> Simon

Hi Simon. This is probably no help whatsoever, but a bit of googling brought 
up the same problem for Fedora 7 on fedora forum from about 3 months ago.

Someone there found that FC6 picked up their optical drive ok, but F 7 didn't. 
Also someone found that an i686 kernel, version 2.6.21-1.3255.fc7 picked up 
the optical drive ok (that was a testing kernel at the time), whereas the 
earlier kernel didn't. The original kernel from my install cdroms for Fedora 
7 is 2.6.21-1.3228.

What is your current kernel? Is Fedora 7 fully updated?

I was stupidly going to suggest you tried a live cdrom, to see if the drive 
was accessible afterwards. Doh. Not so easy with only one optical drive.

2¢ worth of probably useless info

Nigel.