[plug] [johncoom at onaustralia.com.au: Mandrake 9.2 Fries LG CDROM Drives]

[Leon Brooks]

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 17:22, Kimberly Shelt wrote:
> Lucky for me my Aopen Laptop (generically = Acer) is not affected

Nor mine (OpenBook 1547, loaned to SIL for a trip East, coming back 
tomorrow night), especially since I didn't buy it with a CD drive of 
any sort. The built-in options were expensive and wouldn't write DVDs, 
so I got an external 5.25" USB2 case and put a real DVD burner in that.

> This seems to be a problem for those with DELL Laptops and
> any others that have LG CDROM's - so please be aware of this

The problem is invoked by a packet-writing kernel patch which was 
present since 9.2RC1, combined with certain broken LG firmware 
versions.

Some drives work fine, identical models with different firmware just 
die. Not sure yet whether it really kills the hardware or if it only 
kills the firmware. The drives are killed even if you don't install 
from them (so a floppy or netboot install of 9.2 will also kill a 
drive).

Either way, if ordinary software can kill a drive, the drive's design is 
faulty. If you have a dead LG drive, warranty it ASAP.

Mandrake, having isolated the problem, will release a patched kernel 
RSN. I will have updated 9.2 CD's - hopefully including the patched 
kernel - available at the PLUG fixit meeting this Monday night. And an 
802.11 card. (-:

Yes, I will be at the meeting, since I'm on PLUG Committee and they have 
a meeting beforehand.

Cheers; Leon

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