LG optical drives don't work very well

[Frostybeard]

I have been using LG CD-DVD +/- RW-RAM drives. I started having trouble with one, and went out to buy another one, thinking it might be a faulty unit. The shop only had LGs. Now one is running with a Kubuntu box and one is running with PC-BSD. No, they both don't work well.

In Linux and PC-BSD it often does not recognize a CD or DVD. Most brands of CD/DVD they do not like. When I was installing Fibonacci, it was loading the kernel for an hour, after which I finally rebooted it and used a USB drive and installed the whole OS in the time the other drive was working on loading the kernel. The external one is a LaCie, I think. It works. Sometimes the LGs also jam, so that I have to remove power from the whole system.

Anyone else had trouble with LG CD/DVD drives?

[Oko]

No of course not. You have troubles probably because you went and bought SATA optical drive instead of IDE. If you really need (for your work) good quality optical drive buy SCSI drive (they are probably couple hundred dollars in US at least). If not than stick with open hardware instead of buying Windows specific hardware and then complaining that it is not working in Unix like systems.

You also should complain to your hardware vendor for selling you
unsupported hardware. You paid them money and you expect the optical drive to work. They are in business of selling hardware not operating systems so they should provide hardware specifications to ALL operating systems.

[Protagonist]

No of course not. You have troubles probably because you went and bought SATA optical drive instead of IDE. If you really need (for your work) good quality optical drive buy SCSI drive (they are probably couple hundred dollars in US at least). If not than stick with open hardware instead of buying Windows specific hardware and then complaining that it is not working in Unix like systems.

You also should complain to your hardware vendor for selling you
unsupported hardware. You paid them money and you expect the optical drive to work. They are in business of selling hardware not operating systems so they should provide hardware specifications to ALL operating systems.

Maybe I missed something here, but I do not see where he says it is a SATA drive. I know for a fact LG makes EIDE CD/DVD drives as well. We might want to give him the benefit of the doubt here. There just might be a problem with this particular brand and I, for one, like to see people ask about troublesome hardware.

[Oko]

Maybe I missed something here, but I do not see where he says it is a SATA drive. I know for a fact LG makes EIDE CD/DVD drives as well. We might want to give him the benefit of the doubt here. There just might be a problem with this particular brand and I, for one, like to see people ask about troublesome hardware.

You are right. I should be more careful with my answers :( . BUT. There is a big but with the previous one. There are in reality really couple CD/DVD drives that do not work with Unix to my knowledge. I think there is some Mitsubishi optical drives and I think one more brand. These are well-documented and so rare that I would be VERY surprised that anybody saw the one of these. On another hand if you go to newegg.com you will see that about 80% of cheap optical drives sold these days are SATA. The Unix SATA problems are well-documented. There are quite a
few messages on various forums with questions about SATA. The millage with SATA very from person to person depending on the skill level.

I honestly think I even have one of those IDE LG optical drives you mentioned :wink: and I never had a trouble.

[Protagonist]

Maybe I missed something here, but I do not see where he says it is a SATA drive. I know for a fact LG makes EIDE CD/DVD drives as well. We might want to give him the benefit of the doubt here. There just might be a problem with this particular brand and I, for one, like to see people ask about troublesome hardware.

You are right. I should be more careful with my answers :( . BUT. There is a big but with the previous one. There are in reality really couple CD/DVD drives that do not work with Unix to my knowledge. I think there is some Mitsubishi optical drives and I think one more brand. These are well-documented and so rare that I would be VERY surprised that anybody saw the one of these. On another hand if you go to newegg.com you will see that about 80% of cheap optical drives sold these days are SATA. The Unix SATA problems are well-documented. There are quite a
few messages on various forums with questions about SATA. The millage with SATA very from person to person depending on the skill level.

I honestly think I even have one of those IDE LG optical drives you mentioned :wink: and I never had a trouble.

Anyway, I like to see people post when they think a particular brand might be a problem. I know I do not buy Maxtor HDs anymore. I know several people that had problems with them and I have had a problem with them as well. One died shortly after the one year warrenty ended. And to make matters worse their support people really sucked.

[unixornot]

...If you really need (for your work) good quality optical drive buy SCSI drive (they are probably couple hundred dollars in US at least)....

I've been looking around for an SCSI DVD/CD r/w internal drive. I'd appreciate it if you could give some recomendations for me to look at.

[Protagonist]

...If you really need (for your work) good quality optical drive buy SCSI drive (they are probably couple hundred dollars in US at least)....

I've been looking around for an SCSI DVD/CD r/w internal drive. I'd appreciate it if you could give some recomendations for me to look at.

Just google scsi+dvdrom and you will find the links you need. But I use standard IDE drives and they work just fine. Also, unless you have a SCSI controller in your system you will have to buy one of those as well. It is a pretty expensive alternative.

[Oko]

...If you really need (for your work) good quality optical drive buy SCSI drive (they are probably couple hundred dollars in US at least)....

I've been looking around for an SCSI DVD/CD r/w internal drive. I'd appreciate it if you could give some recomendations for me to look at.

Just google scsi+dvdrom and you will find the links you need. But I use standard IDE drives and they work just fine. Also, unless you have a SCSI controller in your system you will have to buy one of those as well. It is a pretty expensive alternative.

VERY expensive alternative!!! Almost all desktop motherboards that are circulating in U.S. and most cheaper server motherboards (less than $400) do not have SCSI controllers. There is PCI to SCSI converter but that one is not worthy of buying. You have to have a mother board with SCSI controller to benefit from SCSI optical drives.

I have never had enough money to have my own SCSI optical drive (the same as Protagonist I always used IDE on Wintel Hardware). I have used SCSI optical drive on Sun's and SGI hardware which did belong to University I
was employed at.

Probably your best bet, if you want computer with SCSI optical drives, is to get Sun hardware. Used Sun Blades 1000 or 2000 can be found for less
than $500 in U.S. I have not checked but those should have SCSI optical drives.

I could not find a single SCSI optical drive on Newegg.com which is the largest U.S. internet web-site for PC commodity hardware. I think that
you could buy professional DVD duplicators (independent devices that you attach to computer usually 5 DVD burners stuck on the top of each other) with SCSI optical drives. Those were around $500 I think.

Sorry, I could not be of more help.

[unixornot]

Thanks Protagonist and OKO, your comments much appreciated and make it pretty clear that SCSI is not really a sensible option. What prompted me to ask about SCSI was the pkg-notes in the ports entry for K3B (although there are comprehensive instructions for using this application with IDE drives).

My IDE optical drive is made by BTC and although I can view the contents of a disc without making any changes in fstab or anywhere else, I cannot copy any files (apart from the smallest) to my hard disc (a Maxtor S-ATA) without everything grinding to a halt after a few kB. An input/output error is reported.

What puzzles me is that things almost work. Do you know if BTC optical drives are bad news or could it be the Maxtor? I'd happily ditch the S-ATA if necessary! However, the same thing happens if I try to copy a file from BTC to a WDC IDE hard drive. Should I throw caution to the wind and invest in another make of optical drive?

[Oko]

My IDE optical drive is made by BTC and although I can view the contents of a disc without making any changes in fstab or anywhere else, I cannot copy any files (apart from the smallest) to my hard disc (a Maxtor S-ATA) without everything grinding to a halt after a few kB. An input/output error is reported.


You have a buffer overflow somewhere :idea: Try to lower the speed of writing.

[Protagonist]

My IDE optical drive is made by BTC and although I can view the contents of a disc without making any changes in fstab or anywhere else, I cannot copy any files (apart from the smallest) to my hard disc (a Maxtor S-ATA) without everything grinding to a halt after a few kB. An input/output error is reported.

What puzzles me is that things almost work. Do you know if BTC optical drives are bad news or could it be the Maxtor? I'd happily ditch the S-ATA if necessary! However, the same thing happens if I try to copy a file from BTC to a WDC IDE hard drive. Should I throw caution to the wind and invest in another make of optical drive?

Any chance you could borrow an external DVD/CD writer to try? Also, when you try to copy a file off of the optical drive are you selecting one from the root folder or one several folders deeper than that? The reason I ask is because I have had optical drives that appeared to work fine until I started burrowing down deeper in the file structure at which point they would fail.

[unixornot]

Thanks for your replies and ideas. Unfortunately, nightshift working makes it difficult for me to to reply in an equally speedy manner.


You have a buffer overflow somewhere :idea: Try to lower the speed of writing.
I can't remember whether I did it logged in as root but I did manage to burn a disc image in K3B from the iso download for PCBSD 7.0. I had to select a write speed of x1 and it took a long time to complete.



Any chance you could borrow an external DVD/CD writer to try? Also, when you try to copy a file off of the optical drive are you selecting one from the root folder or one several folders deeper than that? The reason I ask is because I have had optical drives that appeared to work fine until I started burrowing down deeper in the file structure at which point they would fail.

Whereabouts in a file system I try to copy from doesn't seem to make any difference. The only concern I have about using an external device is that it means introducing a USB interface into proceedings? I do intend to try an internal HP CD writer from an old Dell computer and see how that goes.


Just one thing I must mention. I only managed to get PCBSD installed on my computer after removing my ATI graphics card. Even after removing the card it would only install using option 3 (safe mode). Perhaps having an onboard Radeon Express 200 chipset could be the reason?

Am I right in thinking that installing in "safe mode" means that the installer doesn't configure things completely and this could be the reason for my problems?

I think I have a lot more homework to do but thanks for your help.

P.S. I originally decided to install PCBSD so I could learn about Apache in a UNIX environment. PCBSD has taken over!

[Oko]

P.S. I originally decided to install PCBSD so I could learn about Apache in a UNIX environment. PCBSD has taken over!

PC-BSD is desktop distro which means it has many different desktop applications and wide variety hardware that needs to support out of box.
If you need to learn about Apache just get Vanilla BSD and install it without X. Then compile Apache 1.3 or 2.xx and you are in business.

Even better. Install OpenBSD and Apache 1.3 patched, chrooted, and configured up to highest standards.

Cheers,
OKO

[TerryP]

Radeon Express 200 chipset could be the reason?

My laptop uses an Xpress 200M, no problemo, unless you want to play games more intense then DooM or Wesnoth.



IF Apache is your goal,a ny system will do; if you also want a full web environemnt, look on PBIDir for warden inmates. My own system runs OpenBSD + Apache 1.3.

[unixornot]

It started out with an interest in Apache but I'm thoroughly enjoying trying to configure PCBSD.

I can't remember a time when I enjoyed using a computer so much.

[Protagonist]

It started out with an interest in Apache but I'm thoroughly enjoying trying to configure PCBSD.

I can't remember a time when I enjoyed using a computer so much.

BeOS? :-)

[unixornot]

BeOS? :-)

I was thinking of the days when I was using a BBC Model B and a Newbrain.

Mind you, I've read a little about BeOS and I don't think it will be long before I have a look at it. File downloaded!!

[Protagonist]

BeOS? :-)

I was thinking of the days when I was using a BBC Model B and a Newbrain.

Mind you, I've read a little about BeOS and I don't think it will be long before I have a look at it. File downloaded!!

One of the reasons I use PC-BSD is because it put a lot of the fun back in computing. I hope Haiku gets an installable CD soon as I will put it on this system.