Re: [TCLUG:13992] CDROM Freezing machine (was: [TCLUG:13979] bootup messages)

[Mike Hicks <hick0088@tc.umn.edu>]

> Whenever I do an extended read from the CDROM, like running cdparanoia to
> grab the entire CD... my machine freezes completly. Have to
> hard-reset. This happens whether I'm on raw ATAPI more or in SCSI
> Emulation mode. I thought it was because the CDROM was reading and the HDD
> it was writing to were on the same IDE channel, but I've moved it to IDE1
> and it still happens. I don't know if this means a flaky CDROM drive or a
> flaky IDE motherboard. Can anyone offer any insight?

I get the same problem on my system.  It is the cause of 90% of my
crashes (the other 5% are from trying to run an OpenGL plugin with xmms
when it has root privileges)  However, I think it is something to do
with the hard drive and not the CD drive.  For example, if I do a
mkisofs -- making an image of a CD out of files that are on my HD, the
system will likely halt.

I think Linux is having a hard time catching any errors that my HD may
be giving (I think the errors are something along the line of "oops,
that sector is bad.  I'll move it to one of the extra tracks on the disk
for you.  Just wait a sec", but Linux decides to not wait for whatever
reason..

I keep hoping that the problem will get fixed, but it's been around at
least since 2.1.9x (that's as far back as I can remember right now.)

Another possibility is that my drive is formatted badly.  I'm thinking
of going out and buying a new drive (since 15+ giggers are damn cheap
these days..), copying all of my stuff to it, then reformatting what I
have right now.  I actually had to try and format the big drive I have
(6 Gig) a couple of times before mke2fs would actually finish without
crashing the system.

-- 
 _  _  _  _ _  ___    _ _  _  ___ _ _  __   Can I yell "movie" in a 
/ \/ \(_)| ' // ._\  / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__   crowded firehouse? 
\_||_/|_||_|_\\___/  \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __)                             
 [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088@umn.edu ]