Mandrake Linux 9.2 Destroys CDROM Drive
 

Warning. Mandrake 9.2 can destroy your LG CDROM Drive. Read the following

Slashdot Story

Newsgroup thread about it

Mandrake Errata Page

Mandrake Linux Errata Page

Lg drives which work or dont work

Nice post. Just got done reading /. about this mess. Sorry I don't have anything constructive to say other than I hope your post saves a few drives.

The question now is:

Who is to blame? Mandrake or LG?

Yeah...Quite a few people have been arguing that. A couple A/C's were saying that if it was XP then Microsoft would get blamed. Being /. and all this idea was quickly dismissed.

I have not seen anything definitive as to what the cause is the possible use of 'flush command'. A few people have made the analogy to setting your refresh rates wrong and frying your monitor. This is actually a non-issue in most modern monitors as their acceptable refresh rates are passed via EDID and will not accept something that is out of range. In this case the hardware people are covering themselves.

I guess we won't know who is at *fault* until more information comes out. I don't personally use Mandrake but I feel real bad for the distro and it's users.

Hmm, didnt catch that article on /. still I installed 9.2 via ftp using a network boot floppy.

Has to be said that I would consider it the hardware manufacurers fault as no software should ever be able to cause irreperable damage to a hardware device, although as this seems to be isolated to mandrake im not so sure.

Thx for posting though as my linux box uses an LG writer.

I've been investigating this. Where did you find your fried/work list?

A post in the newsgroup thread.

Thanks. :)

Re: Mandrake Linux 9.2 Destroys CDROM Drive
 

Does LG stand for logi tech?

Thanks,

d-1

so what causes the drives to be destroyed? is it a certain command that mandrake sends to those drives and those drives attempt to follow through with it but fail because it is unable to perform it?

i have heard of scanner drivers for linux breaking scanners because they send "bad" (actually, too high) signals to the motors which cause them to break; the signals make the motor work above the speed it should

so just wondering what exactly causes the problem and if it pertains to older versions of mandrake

A new page has been added at Mandrake that covers the LG drive problem:

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/lgerrata.php3

There is also an updated list of LG drives that are affected at the above link.

I will sticky this for a little while to make sure everyone sees it. Thanks.

--jeremy

Re: Re: Mandrake Linux 9.2 Destroys CDROM Drive
 

LG is goldstar

It's been announced in one of the Mandrake mailing lists that updates for this bug have been released. Enjoy!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

_______________________________________________________________________

Mandrake Linux Update Advisory
_______________________________________________________________________

Package name: kernel
Advisory ID: MDKA-2003:021
Date: October 27th, 2003

Affected versions: 9.2
______________________________________________________________________

Problem Description:

A problem was discovered where the kernel would destroy certain LG-
based CD-ROM devices. This problem has been fixed in the kernels
provided and MandrakeSoft encourages everyone to upgrade.

For more information on this particular problem, view the errata
page on this topic available at:

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/lgerrata.php3

For full information on updating your kernel, please view the
instructions at:

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/kernelupdate.php

New commercial drivers for this kernel will be available at Mandrake
Club shortly.
______________________________________________________________________

Updated Packages:

Mandrake Linux 9.2:
1c718660da91577a483433f92a3dffc7 9.2/RPMS/kernel-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
db498188d51dc929516a6339baab50f0 9.2/RPMS/kernel-BOOT-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
cab4f8fd6eab503808bfdf62795700d3 9.2/RPMS/kernel-doc-2.4.22-21mdk.i586.rpm
49d0a3f4a513c0703d1ad5c39e890b1d 9.2/RPMS/kernel-enterprise-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
b22d9ea8b34bd0bd395b92123909b965 9.2/RPMS/kernel-i686-up-4GB-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
f1a893db6a935bc16f855e41d16a68f0 9.2/RPMS/kernel-p3-smp-64GB-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
1b0c75780c703929e13d8d9e572d72cf 9.2/RPMS/kernel-secure-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
68e0339b3ac8098258683da7e5a503e5 9.2/RPMS/kernel-smp-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
ffcfa70f85b682bbb2f927a4f65b3041 9.2/RPMS/kernel-source-2.4.22-21mdk.i586.rpm
287669262ff8a0d4dc6497256d7cf9bd 9.2/SRPMS/kernel-2.4.22.21mdk-1-1mdk.src.rpm
_______________________________________________________________________

To upgrade automatically use MandrakeUpdate or urpmi. The verification
of md5 checksums and GPG signatures is performed automatically for you.

A list of FTP mirrors can be obtained from:

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/ftp.php

All packages are signed by MandrakeSoft for security. You can obtain
the GPG public key of the Mandrake Linux Security Team by executing:

gpg --recv-keys --keyserver www.mandrakesecure.net 0x22458A98

Please be aware that sometimes it takes the mirrors a few hours to
update.

You can view other update advisories for Mandrake Linux at:

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisories/

MandrakeSoft has several security-related mailing list services that
anyone can subscribe to. Information on these lists can be obtained by
visiting:

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/mlist.php

If you want to report vulnerabilities, please contact

security_linux-mandrake.com

Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID
pub 1024D/22458A98 2000-07-10 Linux Mandrake Security Team
<security linux-mandrake.com>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE/ngF5mqjQ0CJFipgRAmGuAJ9Z6nOvtGY4OoKHySs5D9yyu58qggCfR4sN
UtEexrdcDJmmP9sVOyaKIHg=
=0dxj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have a Pine 40 LG Hitachi CD/RW
 

I have a Pine 40 LG Hitachi CD RW, will/could it effect my CD drive?

I have installed Mandrake 9.2 with it and it doesn't seem to have affected it.

d-1

Lucky Goldstar, Goldstar was famous for their low cost vcr's etc., and there was a merger somewhere along the way...

Wow. I feel bad for Manrdake. Although I use it and I love it. But sheesh, now there is gonna be all these dumb windows users finding more reasons to mock linux and fuel MS's bank account. Too bad. LG too. I really liked there products. They seemed really stable and of high quality for such a great price most of the time. Hopefully both companies can recover and remedy there problems for future releases of both firm and software. Thats my two bits.

Wh33t

i think it's clear who's at fault here. this is the kind of crap that makes
software writers jump through a bunch of stupid hoops, and have loads
of exceptions for buggy hardware. LG shouldn't be allowed to
atapi cdrom on the box. i guess they could put "Mostly ATAPI compatible"

I am a hardware engineer, I just deleted a paragraph blasting LG. Then I realized I was not being polite. Hardware can't be damaged by software, only by other hardware it is connected to. This is a hardware design issue, period. (obviously with a software workaround :) )

Not Entirely True
 

Regarding the following:

<--- Start of original meaasge -->

I am a hardware engineer, I just deleted a paragraph blasting LG. Then I realized I was not being polite. Hardware can't be damaged by software, only by other hardware it is connected to. This is a hardware design issue, period. (obviously with a software workaround )

<-- End of original message -->

I would like to point out that some hardware can be damaged beyond repair by software... This can happen when software tells hardware to perform beyond its working limits without safeguard against damage... This is usually due to a flaw in the hardwares onboard firmware, which may or may not be updated in the field... Regardless, once the damage is done, it's done...

I had an experience similar to the LG fiasco several years ago... Windows 98, not W98 SE, had a problem with SOYO motherboards... If you installed a 500Mhz or 550Mhz AMD CPU on a particular model, the firmware on the SOYO board would be damaged beyond repair by the W98 operating system installation... I smoked three of these boards before SOYO figured out the problem... If you installed a different OS or a different CPU, all was fine... There was no field repair for the damage done to the hardware via firmware if you were unlucky enough to try the wrong combination of hardware and software...

I also had similar results with Diamond Multimedia modems, and I am sure that others have had similar experiences with other hardware that were probably never tracked to their source... It just goes to show that even the best design intentions can lead to disaster under the right circumstances...

I'm not a hardware engineer, and never stayed in a Holiday Inn Express... I just wanted to clarify an otherwise unleading comment... Luckily, my LG drives are only installed in Microsoft OS based machines...

That's a nice post.
OK, now I start to understand why my CD-Rom drive stopped working. Before it's too late - downgrade (and bye-bye 43 USD paid for the nice DVD with mdk on it).

I would like to clarify too. All software and firmware runs on hardware. If the hardware can accept a set of software instructions that cause it to be over stressed, then the hardware design has failed. In the case of LG, they improperly used a command instruction reserved for other purposes in the ATAPI standard and their firmware erased itself. No actual hardware damage, but effectively rendered inoperable. Check out the Mandrake bulletin for all the details.

An unrelated example of human error, which we are all prone two, was the Netgear RP614 Router. In the firmware they inadvertantly coded a network time request to go to a specifc IP address at a university. As more and more units sold, the server became more and more overwhelmed with traffic from these routers. There is a download to fix it, but only so many people keep in touch with vendors and updates. There are proabably thousands of these routers out there hitting on that server address still.

So I am not going to Judge LG or Netgear or anyone else. We all eat humble pie from time to time, and i am no exception.

I don't critisize either mdk or CD-Rom (Sony) makers, certainly. It's just the matter of time.

One year ago I went to the local PC store and I saw hardware only for M$. Now I go there and eventually I see "Linux" on ca. 0.5% of all packages. But I hope mdk doesn't downgrade their releases in the sense of hardware support.

LG is not logitech

LG are just shit
Go with asomething like lite-on or sony. They are the people that developed the idea of cd roms so they will e quite good. At the moment im loyal to samsung digital all. There are fast and reliable and they have a long usage time on them

LG are just s**t? Excuse me? I'd personally prefer to refer to the company by it's former name "Lucky Goldstar" and you can take the name any way you want.

I'd also prefer to buy Lite-On or Sony, but one must always check the hardware you buy under an unfamiliar name. I brought one CD-R under the brand of something like "Digital Research" and I actually thought it was related to the old famous computer company, but it was real cheap, so....

Turns out that Linux recognizes the drive as a Lite-On model, so it worked out ok for me. I pity the people that are getting burned, and hope that some of them are getting warantee replacements. Why do I suspect however that if the word "Linux" is mentioned, the warantee is null and void....

To all those afflicted with a dead lg drive after a mdk 9.2 install, don't through out that drive just yet. LG has a fix that can revive your drive:

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=9483

I personally feel that it's LG's issue. ATAPI is the standard in which is used with CD-ROMs. If they are going to make a new method it should be ATAPI compatible (100%) of they shouldn't use it at all -- otherwise things like this will happen.

One more bit of information....the FLUSH command is a standard command on ATAPI obviously...why would you, if you are a hardware developer for LG, allow such a command to overwrite your firmware? Seems like a pretty hefty bug to me.

my god thats harsh mine works fine :-)

i must be lucky eeeeeee

My drive died when I was trying to install Mandrake. I swore it was just a coincidence, but my fiancee refused to lend me her modular drive. Turns out she was right.

Mandrake has released a page on the LG drive problem detailing how to get an updated firmware for the cdrom drives. Mandrake also has information on how to recover a damaged drive caused by installing Mandrake 9.2. The link to the Mandrake page is http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/lgerrata.php3

This happened to me with my 32x LG drive. The unit died. No contact with it whatsoever, CD inside, panic in my head.

Luckilly the fix (info posted od mandrake's site) works perfectly. Just make sure you follow the directions exactly. Including changing jumpers while the PC is actually on.
Also, ignore the final message after the fix is complete. It says something to the effect that it couldn't fix the drive ut the drive IS fixed and now everything works fine.

Btw. I have applied those frimware pathces from LG to my other LG drives.
I like them, they are pretty inexpensive and good workhorses.

Oh, and the fault wasn;t Mandrake's of course.

i guess my LG DVD/RW will work right? see the photo please..
http://hercules.jeeran.com/LG.JPG

I have a ATAPI 32X CD-ROM. Will it effect my drive???

why does it do that, then agin i use an external drive with mandrake 9.2

sorry CD/RW, are DVD/RW compatable with linux mandrake 9.2 i cant find the softweare anyware

HUH?

Well. Sigh.

I encountered this problem today installing 9.2 with a HLDS GCR-8481B and sure enough it died. I tried to get the Firmware reflash file off of the Dell site and unfortunatly it is not compatible w/a Dell Poweredge server. I'm waiting for a responce from Dell's Tech support to see if there is a file that is compatable w/this server. Go figure. Sniffle. I had no idea and I've probably passed over this thread a million times. :cry:

Tammy

Switch to Fedora please -- Mandrake for kids....

i think it's just the installer that does that, not the installed distribution, but
i'm not sure about that.
anyway, i'm sure mandrake was trying to figure out the best way to
detect what kind of drives were in the computer, and thought it would
be safest to flush the buffers of the drive before running detect commands.
And they see this command in the ATAPI Specs.
Flush Drive Buffers-XXX address whatever.

Unfortunately LG a while back says, "Hey, nobody uses that flush buffer
command. Let's use it to update our firmware." "Yea. Great Idea!"

It's like that redneck joke.
A guy was riding with a friend in his truck, and they came up on a redlight.
They didn't even slow down, and just flew through the light at 60 miles
an hour. The passenger says,"What the hell are you doing!? We could
have been killed." Driver says, "Don't worry about it. My uncle bob does
it all the time." The next light is red too. They fly through that too.
Passenger, "This is crazy. Don't do that!" Driver, "Don't worry. uncle bob
does it all the time." The next light is green. The truck goes skidding
to a stop, and just sits there at the green light. The passenger says,
"What are you doing? The light is green." The driver replies, "Uncle
Bob might be coming."

update
 

Even though the guy at Dell's tech support thinks the reflash should work on my poweredge it reads the floppy drive for a split second and then does nothing. So.

I have an HL Data Storage GCR-8481B and since I know that some drives are exactly the same, made by the same initial company just stamped w/different brand names I looked up the LG drives that had the same prob on their website and, sure enough, found one w/the same ending number (8481B). Figuring that it is exactly the same and realizing that things couldn't get much worse, I downloaded their reflash file.

Since my other Dell was just repartitioned w/out an ounce of an OS (the drive died after I custom partitioned it and while it was looking for available packages) I made an XP boot floppy which in turn gave me a c:\

I made a temp file and copied the two reflash files over to it - XFERLG.exe and a Vsomethingsomething.lge file. When I ran XFERLG.exe I got the following error:

Error: LGE file not specified
Usage: XFERLG [LGE filename with no extension]

I'm confused. I read the README file and followed the simple instructions to a t. Supposedly there were no other configurations that had to be done. To me the LGE file was specified 'cause there was one in the temp directory that I was running the .exe file from. Lastly, the file exe file did have an extension, hence .exe. I'm a more of a Solaris/Linux girl and I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to the DOS command prompt so maybe I'm doing something wrong but I don't know what it could be. I would really like to fix this problem on my own instead of buying another CD-ROM drive. I would appreciate any and all ideas out there as I have no idea where to go from here.

Thanks!
Tammy

P.S. I realize this is more of a Windows issue but I'm hoping other Linux users out there have run into this specific problem and found a workaround for it.

update
 

Today I tried two different reflash files from two different places - Dell's HL Storage 8481B and the one from LG's site.

for Dell's file I went to a:\ and typed jvx jv3de108

for LG's I tried a:\xferv4 v4lglx48

both started a dos looking program that thought a minute and said something like CD-ROM device not installed. I know it is installed because I looked inside and made sure everything was hooked up and tightened. Not sure what to do now...I'd really hate to trash these two CD-ROM drives.

Okido,

So after temporarily destroying the LG drive (unrecognisably disguised as a Goldstar) I have fixed it (after 5 hours of hard work, I'm a newbie ... no?).

Now it seems the AOPEN drive I have used as a replacement during the install also has a problem now. Could this be related?

I am unable to find firmware on the AOPEN website ...

Any Idea's ...?

Kind regards,
Peter

I am with Rab22 on this isue, sorry to see so many people are learning the hard way about the word " CHEEP ". Just remember you get what you pay for. :tisk:

You get what you pay for?? :scratch:

My company paid for fully-loaded Dell PowerEdge servers - hardly cheap.

Anyway if you have any useful, constructive and non-presumptuous tips or comments on this subject please post them because I know I'm not the only one still having issues w/this.


snort. ok i feel better now - sorry.

i had a dell poweredge a while back, and it had the cdrom drive hooked
to a third hard drive port, which i would expect the firmware update program
to not be able to see. if that is true, putting the cdrom drive on the primary
or secondary port may let it update the firmware.

Thanks for the idea!! I will try that.

Dell is cheap
 

No offence but Dell is cheap... well cheap components that you pay a fourtune for. Dell is a name you pay for, they know it too. This is why Dell doesn't place higher end components in their higher end equipement. Their idea is to church up the outside and put inside what will get you by, this is ofcourse minus processor. I have seen their upper end gaming and multimedia machines using system ram for video. Now that is cheap.

Hell the LG cdrom drives for them are literally a couple of dollars to purchase. Max cost is still in single digits for them. I can get LG cdroms from a PC builder I know for at his cost like 10 bucks. He won't even touch them because you do get what you pay for.

He as do I like LG's other products though. I have an LG CD/RW 8400b which is a 40x12x40, actually bought it from him. I love it, never had an issue with it. Works like a dream on the system it is in on both the on board IDE channels and the IDE channels on an add on PCI IDE card in the system. There is another burner in the system as well, it is a Digital Pacific CDWRITER IDE5224 a 52x24x52 and it was supposed to replace the LG. I ended up at this point avoid it like the plauge.

To some of you out here I bet you are wondering why and if you don't care I am going to say why anyways...lol

The reason is the LG has been more reliable with less buffer underruns and errors. It actually burns a disk quicker then the Pacific Digital, this do to that snazzy max burn speed being recorded at a maximum burst not the max constant spin of the drive. The most I have seen for constant burning speed on the Pacific Digital no word of a lie, and this is scary is 24x but the LG at constant spin loves 35x. I have tried to see if I can get the Pacific Digital to burn faster but no luck tweaking settings etc. This is under a dual boot environment in two OS's, in the BIOS, so on and so forth. It is the drive itself I've come to the conclusion.

From looking out here and from my own experience if you stay away from cheap LG PC products you will get a great peice of hardware.

Did you read what RAB22 posted? Do you know what ATAPI standards are? Do you know that the subject is about Goldstar CD players that are not ATAPI standard? Do you Know that DELL puts these cheep non-standard cd players into the computers they build?

I do not care about your company and the fully-loaded DELL powerEdge servers. Take a look inside of them and tell me where the parts came from and can they be used in another brand server.

Now you would like a useful, constructive and non-presumptuous tip or comment on this subject?
You have two choices at this point:
One, you can down load the fix from Goldstar and see if it works with Mandrake 9.2 or
Two, if one did not work, than your CD is dead, go buy a new one!

And please do not come back to tell us about the sweet deal you got on a new Goldstar.

I totally agree with you!:D