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no DVD drive found?

 

 

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greg at gregandeva

Nov 16, 2009, 3:52 PM

Post #1 of 10 (615 views)
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no DVD drive found?

This turns out not to really be a Myth issue, but it is happening on my
master backend and causing me problems in Myth, so I thought I'd ask
here. I could not get MythDVD to work at all. Basically, the system is
not finding my DVD drive. It shows up fine in the BIOS, but not in
Linux. I don't see any messages about it at all in dmesg, it's like it's
just not there. There are no /dev/dvd or /dev/sr0 devices like there are
on my desktop which has a similar unit. My system hard drive is on the
same IDE controller and it is working fine. I thought at first the data
cable might have come unseated from the DVD drive, but then the BIOS
couldn't detect it either, right? What could cause it to be detected in
the BIOS but not by the Linux kernel? Any hints on how I can debug this?

--Greg


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greg12866 at nycap

Nov 16, 2009, 4:01 PM

Post #2 of 10 (598 views)
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Re: no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 16:52 -0700, Greg Woods wrote:
> This turns out not to really be a Myth issue, but it is happening on my
> master backend and causing me problems in Myth, so I thought I'd ask
> here. I could not get MythDVD to work at all. Basically, the system is
> not finding my DVD drive. It shows up fine in the BIOS, but not in
> Linux. I don't see any messages about it at all in dmesg, it's like it's
> just not there. There are no /dev/dvd or /dev/sr0 devices like there are
> on my desktop which has a similar unit. My system hard drive is on the
> same IDE controller and it is working fine. I thought at first the data
> cable might have come unseated from the DVD drive, but then the BIOS
> couldn't detect it either, right? What could cause it to be detected in
> the BIOS but not by the Linux kernel? Any hints on how I can debug this?
>
> --Greg
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users [at] mythtv
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Try this and see if it shows up.. sudo lshw -C disk

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greg at gregandeva

Nov 16, 2009, 5:02 PM

Post #3 of 10 (577 views)
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Re: no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 19:01 -0500, greg wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 16:52 -0700, Greg Woods wrote:
> the system is
> > not finding my DVD drive.
> Try this and see if it shows up.. sudo lshw -C disk

Nope, but that's not surprising since it's not in dmesg either.
The other four disks on the system (four SATA 1TB's for recordings and
videos) and the system disk (400GB IDE) do show up and those are all
working. The evidence says the BIOS sees the optical drive (it even
identifies it) but the Linux kernel does not.

--Greg


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f-myth-users at media

Nov 16, 2009, 7:09 PM

Post #4 of 10 (578 views)
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no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

> Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:02:30 -0700
> From: Greg Woods <greg [at] gregandeva>

> On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 19:01 -0500, greg wrote:
> > On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 16:52 -0700, Greg Woods wrote:
> > the system is
> > > not finding my DVD drive.
> > Try this and see if it shows up.. sudo lshw -C disk

> Nope, but that's not surprising since it's not in dmesg either.
> The other four disks on the system (four SATA 1TB's for recordings and
> videos) and the system disk (400GB IDE) do show up and those are all
> working. The evidence says the BIOS sees the optical drive (it even
> identifies it) but the Linux kernel does not.

I don't believe you ever told us the model number of the drive.
Have you tried searching for that model number and "linux" or
something like that to see if others reported similar problems?
Maybe the drive doesn't follow standards correctly.
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eric at lisaneric

Nov 16, 2009, 7:11 PM

Post #5 of 10 (578 views)
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Re: no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 6:52 PM, Greg Woods <greg [at] gregandeva> wrote:
> This turns out not to really be a Myth issue, but it is happening on my
> master backend and causing me problems in Myth, so I thought I'd ask
> here. I could not get MythDVD to work at all. Basically, the system is
> not finding my DVD drive. It shows up fine in the BIOS, but not in
> Linux. I don't see any messages about it at all in dmesg, it's like it's
> just not there. There are no /dev/dvd or /dev/sr0 devices like there are
> on my desktop which has a similar unit. My system hard drive is on the
> same IDE controller and it is working fine.

This is an older style IDE (not SATA) system for both the hard drive
and DVD drive? What type of controller is it? Are the hard drive and
optical drive on the same or separate IDE buses?

Eric
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greg at gregandeva

Nov 16, 2009, 9:20 PM

Post #6 of 10 (564 views)
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Re: no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 22:09 -0500, f-myth-users [at] media wrote:

>
> I don't believe you ever told us the model number of the drive.
> Have you tried searching for that model number and "linux" or
> something like that to see if others reported similar problems?

I haven't. I figure if I get to the point where this is all that I have
left, I'll be screwed. However, I do have the exact same drive in
another system and it works fine, but the other system has very
different hardware other than the DVD drive.

--Greg


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greg at gregandeva

Nov 16, 2009, 9:21 PM

Post #7 of 10 (565 views)
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Re: no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

On Mon, 2009-11-16 at 22:11 -0500, Eric Sharkey wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 6:52 PM, Greg Woods <greg [at] gregandeva> wrote:
> > This turns out not to really be a Myth issue, but it is happening on my
> > master backend and causing me problems in Myth, so I thought I'd ask
> > here. I could not get MythDVD to work at all. Basically, the system is
> > not finding my DVD drive. It shows up fine in the BIOS, but not in
> > Linux. I don't see any messages about it at all in dmesg, it's like it's
> > just not there. There are no /dev/dvd or /dev/sr0 devices like there are
> > on my desktop which has a similar unit. My system hard drive is on the
> > same IDE controller and it is working fine.
>
> This is an older style IDE (not SATA) system for both the hard drive
> and DVD drive?

I have five hard drives. Four of them are SATA, one of them is on the
same IDE cable as the "missing" DVD drive. That one is the system/OS
drive and is working.

> What type of controller is it?

This is from "lspci":

00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2) (prog-if 8a
[Master SecP PriP])

> Are the hard drive and
> optical drive on the same or separate IDE buses?

Same.

--Greg


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f-myth-users at media

Nov 16, 2009, 9:39 PM

Post #8 of 10 (564 views)
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no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

> Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:21:03 -0700
> From: Greg Woods <greg [at] gregandeva>

> > Are the hard drive and
> > optical drive on the same or separate IDE buses?

> Same.

Not to ask the obvious, but... you're -sure- that the disk and the
DVD are jumpered so they're not trying to be the same device? Or
maybe you're using cable select and it doesn't work right for one
of them? This a 40- or 80-pin cable?

(Yes, yes, I know, presumably the BIOS wouldn't see it either, but
stranger things have happened---maybe they only step on each other
when accessed in ways the BIOS doesn't access use.)

Can you maybe put one of them on the other IDE bus (if your
motherboard has two), or try using a different IDE cable?
Maybe yours has a crucial conductor broken/shorted in some
way the BIOS doesn't notice but which confuses an OS.
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greg at gregandeva

Nov 17, 2009, 6:52 AM

Post #9 of 10 (545 views)
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Re: no DVD drive found? [In reply to]

On Tue, 2009-11-17 at 00:39 -0500, f-myth-users [at] media wrote:
> you're -sure- that the disk and the
> DVD are jumpered so they're not trying to be the same device?

Worth checking the jumper settings. Since this is my master back end and
I work during the day, it may be a few days before I have time to take
it down, disconnect all the cables, and open it up to check. I didn't
want to do that until I actually knew what I was going to be looking
for.


> (Yes, yes, I know, presumably the BIOS wouldn't see it either

Yes, that's what I would have thought. But there is obviously something
going on here that is beyond my limited understanding of how the
hardware works.


> Can you maybe put one of them on the other IDE bus (if your
> motherboard has two)

Only has one.

> , or try using a different IDE cable?

That I can also try, I have several spares lying around.

Thanks for the tips.

--Greg


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greg at gregandeva

Nov 21, 2009, 3:48 PM

Post #10 of 10 (458 views)
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Re: no DVD drive found? SOLVED [In reply to]

Unclear what really fixed the problem, but I opened up the box. Remember
the story about the proverbial car where you had to pull the engine to
change the headlight bulb? That's what computer cases are like for me.
To remove the hard drive to check jumper settings, I had to pull the
memory chips. To get the DVD drive out, I had to pull the power supply
(but fortunately could avoid having to disconnect all the power cables).
Once I did that, the jumpers were correct: the DVD drive was jumpered as
slave, the hard drive as master. The only odd thing was that the blue
end of the IDE cable was plugged into the DVD drive and the black end
into the motherboard. The blue color of the motherboard connector
suggests that this is backwards.

What I ended up doing was mounting the hard drive in the top section of
the bay closer to the DVD drive (which required a mounting bracket that
I happened to have). This is probably why the cable was "backward" to
begin with; before I moved it, the hard drive was too far away from the
DVD drive for the cable to be plugged in "forward". After moving it, it
would fit the "right" way.

At any rate, after spending an entire evening doing all this, the DVD
drive now works! And my very first attempt to play a DVD from within
Mythtv also worked. Haven't tried to rip any DVD's yet, the hardware
work took all the time I had.

I wasn't the one who built this box, so my ego won't be insulted here.
But does it really matter which end of the IDE cable is connected to the
motherboard? Aren't they just straight-through cables? Maybe the reason
the problem is fixed is that something wasn't quite seated right?
Although I tried reseating the cable connections before I actually
pulled any drives and it didn't help.

--Greg


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