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 )

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.